Cloning for Backup: who does it and how?

[BonzaiDuck]

I never sat down and drew up plans for a household backup for five PCs. Perhaps I might have, but one takes advantage of various features. WHS-2011 incrementally backs up all attached workstations daily. The server hs redundancy for selected folder duplication. The server can be physically backed up according to a schedule of some sort or a matter of whim. You can use USB or e-SATA backup disks for other backups, and so forth and so on.

How many people clone the hard disk on one or more of their computers with any regularity in a backup plan that may include other features such as I've mentioned?

I might do this myself every six months -- always inclined to do it when I'm exploring additional overclock settings. Anyone else?

 

[ronbo613]

I use Windows 7 disc imaging tool to create a drive image of my boot drive on other hard drives on a fairly regular basis. I have a clone of the drive that I made before I installed an SSD, but since getting the SSD, I use the imaging tool instead of cloning.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I use Windows 7 disc imaging tool to create a drive image of my boot drive on other hard drives on a fairly regular basis. I have a clone of the drive that I made before I installed an SSD, but since getting the SSD, I use the imaging tool instead of cloning.

On this one item -- "drive image" -- I'd avoided using imaging tools since I had to troubleshoot a friend's computer who used such a feature of Symantec-Norton .. . whatever.

How much space on a disk is consumed by a drive image -- say, per 100GB of source-drive occupied space?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Macrium Reflect's image files are about 40% of the occupied space of the partition imaged, with default compression. My images of a 32 GB partition take up between 13 and 14 GB. Takes about 6 minutes on an i5-2500.

Personally, I'd use imaging rather than cloning, but some imaging tools are better than others.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Macrium Reflect's image files are about 40% of the occupied space of the partition imaged, with default compression. My images of a 32 GB partition take up between 13 and 14 GB. Takes about 6 minutes on an i5-2500.

Personally, I'd use imaging rather than cloning, but some imaging tools are better than others.

I'm only guessing you'd use a hot-swap bay and drive-caddy for something like that, unless you're running the backup drive in the system all the time.

I don't even use the Windows software for Acronis Disk Director, but instead use the bootable optical disc after rebooting the system. The GUI is decent, but it means the computer is inaccessible for a couple hours. Never bothered to clock it, but it's certainly an inconvenience doing it with a full clone.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'm only guessing you'd use a hot-swap bay and drive-caddy for something like that, unless you're running the backup drive in the system all the time.

I'm backing up only a single PC. The OS and apps are on an SSD. The image file of C is stored on an internal HDD. The image file itself is backed up to a second HDD.

If C is hosed for whatever reason, I'm down the time required to restore the image--30 to 45 minutes, by booting from a Win PE recovery disk. Very rarely needed, but has saved many hours of custom configuration and tweaking on those rare occasions.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm backing up only a single PC. The OS and apps are on an SSD. The image file of C is stored on an internal HDD. The image file itself is backed up to a second HDD.

If C is hosed for whatever reason, I'm down the time required to restore the image--30 to 45 minutes, by booting from a Win PE recovery disk. Very rarely needed, but has saved many hours of custom configuration and tweaking on those rare occasions.

Sounds like a good strategy. I think I'll look into the Acronis image software (as opposed to my Disk Director v11), and consider using my hot-swap "clone" drive for imaging.

 

[Charlie98]

I use Acronis to make full backup images (not clones) of my C drive every night, spread across 3 different drives (1 or 2 each night, in rotation.) My C drive has 155GB of data on it, the backup images are about 135GB in size, so I'm assuming there is some compression in there somewhere.

I had an opportunity to try one out... last year when my Samsung SSD took a puke. Installed a new Plextor SSD, mounted the image and off I went... about 40 minutes. In fact, I'm still running that image today.

According to your sig, you have a WD drive in your rig... WD has a free version of Acronis '13, while it's not full-featured, it has all the main components and functionality you will need.

 

[CA19100]

I'm backing up only a single PC. The OS and apps are on an SSD. The image file of C is stored on an internal HDD. The image file itself is backed up to a second HDD.

If C is hosed for whatever reason, I'm down the time required to restore the image--30 to 45 minutes, by booting from a Win PE recovery disk. Very rarely needed, but has saved many hours of custom configuration and tweaking on those rare occasions.

If you move to Windows 8, you might also consider using a Custom Recovery Image for that purpose. Recovery is as simple as using the Windows "Refresh this PC" command, and it'll restore your custom image, including settings and desktop programs.

Here's more info on that: http://www.howtogeek.com/167831/eve...reating-custom-recovery-images-for-windows-8/

 

[npaladin-2000]

I use Acronis 2014 to do weekly backups over a network. Weekly incremental and monthly full to my network storage server.

 

[razel]

Just like yourself ever since 2009, but without using nothing fancy. A full image backup using the built-in Win7/8 image utility every 6 months on two rotating portable $60 1TB Seagate drives.

I absolutely love how the built in utility creates VHDs of the drive which is mountable directly in Win7/8. That way if you wanted to just get one file you easily could.

 

[Silenus]

Acronis user here also. Daily image backups of my C drive and file backups of my data drive. (monthly full, weekly differential, daily incremental). You can do individual file recovery from the images with versioning right through the windows explorer, similar to previous versions. Full image recovery is easy too. I have the F11 recovery partition setup too.

Had a problem with Windows last year (I did something stupid and really broke it, could not log in at all). Instead of trying to fix, I just hit F11 on boot looked for the backup images and selected the most recent (from earlier that very morning) let it recover and 20 mins later I'm done and running again.

 

[Towermax]

If you move to Windows 8, you might also consider using a Custom Recovery Image for that purpose. Recovery is as simple as using the Windows "Refresh this PC" command, and it'll restore your custom image, including settings and desktop programs.

Here's more info on that: http://www.howtogeek.com/167831/eve...reating-custom-recovery-images-for-windows-8/

Thanks, that was helpful. I'm away from home and just had to restore from a month-old Macrium Reflect image. Fortunately, I was able to save everything recent before I did the restore, so my system is back to normal and up-to-date. This would have saved a lot of time. I just made a Custom Recovery Image.

 

[MoInSTL]

Macrium. Easy and fast.

Store image on NAS, external drive, seperate internal drive

 

[Koing]

I have a qnap that supports TimeMachine and I have an old image of my SSD. I should really take the time to do a more regular clone but I have my TimeMachine doing it's thing.

Important work files I have on my dropbox folder.

Koing

 

[Doomer]

Macrium. Easy and fast.

Store image on NAS, external drive, seperate internal drive

This.

 

[Concillian]

On my file server I just use 3 identical drives. Build one, clone it to the other 2. Two are inside the machine (nightly incremental backups). The third is given to my neighbor across the street and he gives me his external and we remind each other every once in a while that it's time to refresh the backups. Then I attach it via USB and re-clone it.

Something dies, all three drives are bootable, so I can just swap and go.
This takes a little up-front work, but once that's done, it's very simple to manage. Even simpler to fix if something ever goes wrong.

Nothing important is kept on our normal PCs. It's assumed these drives can fail at any time and we'll lose everything. Network drives are used for My Documents and such so there's nothing of any real value on the PCs themselves. Just applications that can be re-installed, some wallpapers... that kind of thing.

 

[ichie]

my tool is aomei backupper, support server and PC. I also use windows built-in backup tool for short-term backup.
schedule backup, usually one year, Haha...
if there are something new in my computer, I will do a full backup.

 

[Torn Mind]

I find think images would be more convenient because you don't have to basically let a hard drive be mostly untouched or lightly modified as a cloned drive would be. The benefit of a clone drive is that you won't have to worry about the image being corrupted and you can fire up the drive almost immediately.

Clonezilla works well as a free cloning tool. It is a "disk" though, so you have to boot into it on a CD or USB stick.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I have a feeling the OP is using the term "clone" to mean "image".

 

[corkyg]

A cloned drive is a bit by bit image, essentially a duplicate drive that can be used to immediately replace a drive. Cloning is, IMHO, just jargon for imaging. I used the clone or image function to create duplicate drives in 4 machines. They get updated weekly by rotating the drives. In my notebook, I do it with a pair of SSDs. This has worked for me for many years.

 

[Carson Dyle]

A cloned drive is a bit by bit image, essentially a duplicate drive that can be used to immediately replace a drive. Cloning is, IMHO, just jargon for imaging. I used the clone or image function to create duplicate drives in 4 machines. They get updated weekly by rotating the drives. In my notebook, I do it with a pair of SSDs. This has worked for me for many years.

You physically swap the drives?

 

[ronbo613]

I look at a cloned drive as a drive that you clone from an existing drive and set it aside for a rainy day. In case of trouble, you physically swap drives. Imaging gives you the same backup without needing a drive that is mothballed in case of emergency. That was the primary plan with Windows XP using Acronis software. Windows 7 Image Backup is easier to use and you don't need the additional drive.

Imaging the drive to additional hard drives, either in the computer, in an external drive or NAS is the way to go.

 

[corkyg]

You physically swap the drives?

Yes. In one machine it is simply a power switch selection. In another it is a rack selection. Iin the laptop, (T510) it is a direct exchange. The reserve drive goes into a padded case and goes with me on all trips. It takes less than a minute to swap the drives, and proviudes full "system restore" in the even of any trouble.

As for image in a backup area, yes, that is possible. Backup per se usually is encoded into a single file and requires restoration at use. Seems like these terms are rather loose and depend a lot on the user. My tool is Acronis TI (now 2014) via bootable media, i.e., CD or Flash drive. I never use the "backup" function because it requires restore to use the files.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Yes. In one machine it is simply a power switch selection. In another it is a rack selection. Iin the laptop, (T510) it is a direct exchange. The reserve drive goes into a padded case and goes with me on all trips. It takes less than a minute to swap the drives, and proviudes full "system restore" in the even of any trouble.

Ok. But what exactly is the logic behind that? You still have to clone the internal drive to the external drive occasionally, and the "restore" procedure will be the same. Why not always keep the same drive in the machine and use the other for the clone/backup? Why all the drive swapping?

As for image in a backup area, yes, that is possible. Backup per se usually is encoded into a single file and requires restoration at use. Seems like these terms are rather loose and depend a lot on the user. My tool is Acronis TI (now 2014) via bootable media, i.e., CD or Flash drive. I never use the "backup" function because it requires restore to use the files.

The only thing that I can see cloning buys you, is that you have a drive available immediately to swap into a machine with a failed drive. But having a bunch of systems with clone drives doesn't make much sense, as the chances of all drives failing at the same time is infinitely small. With imaging, all you really need is a spare drive available on which to restore an image when a drive fails.

By not using any kind of backup between clones, you have the issue of losing all edits and new local files since the last cloning (which is essentially the same as a full backup).