best backup software with USB external hard drives?
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From: Al Dykes on 18 Jun 2010 03:28 In article <4c1af2a8$0$28631$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com>, iws <nospam(a)nospam.com> wrote: >On 6/15/2010 3:41 PM, Joe wrote: >> I looked at USB hard drives at Best Buy the other day- I plan on buying >> a 1 TB drive. The backup software all seems similar at least from what >> the boxes say. >> >> or would it be better to use third party software like Acronis? >> >> My PC has Vista- the backup software with that is extremely minimal. >> Joe >True Image has worked well for me. It's fast compared to some simple >ones I've tried. I guess the only disadvantage is the backup is in a >proprietary format. The documentation for the full TI2010 says it has a tool to convert TI's .tib files to the file format used by Windows 7's backup/restore tool. -- Al Dykes News is something someone wants to suppress, everything else is advertising. - Lord Northcliffe, publisher of the Daily Mail
From: David Brown on 18 Jun 2010 04:53 On 18/06/2010 09:58, Ed Light wrote: > >>> Problem is testing a full restore of the system disk is in itself a >>> dangerous procedure. Better to do it when you got nothing left to lose. >>> >> >> The this "full restore" is not a usable backup system. >> >> If you can't test it, you can't be sure it works properly, and you can't >> rely on it. > > I use bootitng, a partition and boot manager. I limit my system > partitions to 20-30 gigs. I say partitions because there are >1. I have > my data on volumes in an extended partition. And I leave some free space > for testing. > > So, if I want to test restoring an image of the main system partition, > I'll just restore it to free space, make a boot item for it including > the data partitions I want, and boot it up. > > Too, I test new software on copies of the main partition to see if it > will harm it. > > If you can test the restore, and /have/ tested it, then it's fine for a backup.
From: Joe on 18 Jun 2010 07:03 Well, my concern with Acronis is that- I could figure out how to run it to make backups and create an image- but if my drive crashes and I need to do a restore- that's when I'm likely to freak out. Can it restore an image easily to a larger drive of a different brand? Since the image would contain the boot sector which has info about the old drive- if I install the image to a new drive, what happens then? Will the new drive boot up properly? I wish I had a lot of old computers to just experiment with. Years ago I did a fair amount of "geek work" but I've forgotten most of it- and this stuff evolves so quickly I've lost my confidence. Joe "edfair" <edfair.4cpf8t(a)no.email.invalid> wrote in message news:edfair.4cpf8t(a)no.email.invalid... > > I waffle between Acronis and PCBackup for my customers. PCB is now > something else, was MIGO but has been renamed again. > > One advantage of Acronis is the image you can get, then use that to > rebuild the system, with the overhead of all the extra stuff imaged. > PCB would require a reload of the OS and then a restore to just get your > data. > > Or a combination, weekly image with Acronis and a daily with something > else. > >
From: Bob Willard on 18 Jun 2010 11:37 Joe wrote: > Well, my concern with Acronis is that- I could figure out how to run it > to make backups and create an image- but if my drive crashes and I need > to do a restore- that's when I'm likely to freak out. > > Can it restore an image easily to a larger drive of a different brand? > Since the image would contain the boot sector which has info about the > old drive- if I install the image to a new drive, what happens then? > Will the new drive boot up properly? > > I wish I had a lot of old computers to just experiment with. > > Years ago I did a fair amount of "geek work" but I've forgotten most of > it- and this stuff evolves so quickly I've lost my confidence. > > Joe > Yes, TI works fine. I've backed up from a large HD and restored to a small HD, and I've backed up from a small HD and restored to a large HD. And, TI does not care about the HD brand at all. I can't speak to IDE, since my experience with TI is only with SATA. -- Cheers, Bob
From: Arno on 18 Jun 2010 11:58
Yousuf Khan <bbbl67(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On 6/16/2010 9:16 PM, Arno wrote: >> Yousuf Khan<bbbl67(a)spammenot.yahoo.com> wrote: >>> I use the Windows 7 backup, which I hear is a quantum leap better than >>> anything that came with Windows before, but I have no idea, as I never >>> used any of the stuff that came in Windows before. I hear one of my >>> systems has failed in Canada. I have backed it up with the Windows 7 >>> backup, so once I'm back in Canada I'll know how good it is at restore. >>> Yeesh, why do these things always happen when you're gone?! >> >> Better entertainment value that way ;-) >> >> Seriously, you absolutely need to test the full restore procedure >> before you need it. > Problem is testing a full restore of the system disk is in itself a > dangerous procedure. Better to do it when you got nothing left to lose. Well, no. But you are right about this being potentially dangerous. The way to remove the danger is to remove all disks from the system and do the restore test on a spare disk. Arno -- Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: arno(a)wagner.name GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F ---- Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans |