Backup

[Druckles]

So I'm looking to backup my harddrives. I've got a 250GB running Windows 7, a 250GB disk with my data on, a spare 750GB, and 1.5TB on an external drive. I'm planning on moving the W7 250 to the 750 and then installing Linux on it.

Originally I partitioned the external drive to reflect my disks: 750GB, 250GB, 250GB, and the remaining ~250GB was for my laptop. I was planning on cloning the drives onto the partitions using Macrium Reflect or DriveImage XML, but it was suggested I just backup using Windows 7's tool and create a system image.

So what do you guys do to backup? Advantages and disadvantages of cloning vs backing up? Is Windows 7 backup actually decent?

 

[Druckles]

No-one here bothers with backing up?

 

[Warbie]

Other than pasting to an external drive, nope. If i was going to backup more securely i'd invest in a decent raided nas box and copy over important files.

Do you need a backup tool?

 

[VirusType2]

I try to keep backups of things I care about, but I guess I just live on the edge for the most part. I don't have very much installed. Most of my data is media and I keep a backup of as much as I can.

I need to find some software to make a mirror of a drive (haven't looked yet). I can't use WD tools since these are Samsung drives.

 

[Warbie]

You mean mirror raid or cloning a partition?

 

[VirusType2]

I want to make an exact copy of a hard drive to another drive. I don't remember what it's called (clone/mirror), but I used it to back up my Windows before, and Windows couldn't tell the difference.

 

[Warbie]

Try acronis. We recently switched to it at work over Norton - it's good.

 

[Druckles]

The only problem is it's not free. Looking into it, Macrium and DriveImage are apparently both good options for cloning, but I've not used them yet. My preference was XXClone, but it's not supported in Windows 7, which sucks. HDClone is another popular one, but the free version can't do cloning to a partition.

I may just give up on cloning to the external's partitions and just do a backup with Windows 7.

 

[bodhi]

acronis true image is indeed awesome, rather then buy it you can go get a Hirens Boot Disc off the interweb, it has the enterprise edition of true image, i it at work fairly regularly.

edit: just checked the latest hirens 11, and it doesnt have true image anymore from what i can see, have a look for one of the version 9 disks, im almost positive its on them

 

[Raziaar]

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I'm backing up, backing up, backing up, backing up cause my daddy taught me good.


Seriously though... my backing up procedure simply revolves around transporting stuff from my internal hard drive to external hard drives. Simple procedure.

I usually spend half a day to a day going through my computer and figuring out exactly what I want to back up. It's a very specific and labor intensive backup procedure, but I rarely do it so it works.

 

[Druckles]

Surely you might as well clone your drives, in that case?

 

[AtomicSpark]

I only backup my home folder using a simple rsync script to another machine. Applications are easy to reinstall and settings are easy to reconfigure. I save a lot of space this way. I never do get around to backing up saved games on Windows (mostly because they're always scattered all over your C: drive) and I'm too lazy to care. I rarely regret this decision, unless I go back to playing a game many months later.

 

[Raziaar]

Surely you might as well clone your drives, in that case?

Hmmm?

 

[Druckles]

Well if you spend half a day looking for things to backup, you might as well copy the entire thing and leave it running?