External Drive

[heymrdj]

Is there any external hard drives made that come with software to automatically backup the entire system (OS and all) and be able to restore this to a new drive (think WHS, without a WHS server, just a single computer). GF needs a full backup of the system on a minimum weekly basis, preferably to a external hard drive. I figure this might be more of a software question but I wasn't sure.

She needs 500GB storage minimum (digital arts person, lots and lots of images.)

 

[her209]

Does she only need the latest backup, i.e., no point-in-time backups?

 

[heymrdj]

Originally posted by: her209
Does she only need the latest backup, i.e., no point-in-time backups?

Only the latest backup is needed, no point in time is necessary.

 

[heymrdj]

Oh and also to say she has USB2.0, Firewire 800, and eSATA all at her disposal for connectivity.

 

[Old Hippie]

That feature is usually called one touch back-up and it looks like you can buy bare enclosures or prebuilt combos.

I've never used it and can't recommend anything in particular.

 

[heymrdj]

Alright I've done some research, and I see what I wanted is one touch backup. But all that does is initiate software on the system, which is frequently very crappy and can't be easily used to restore the system in a virgin (IE no OS loaded) state. So I've decided to get her a 500GB-1TB external drive and Acronis True Image Home which has non-stop data protection that can be placed on external USB, SCSI, Firewire, or ESATA discs, and loaded via the True Image burnable boot CD to restore this image to a virgin system.

Thanks for the help guys!