DescentBB

yesterday I got a windows error stating that vital files were messed up and I had to reboot.
Reboot seems to have fixed it (I rarely reboot anymore...just put the system in standby mode).

But it got me to wondering about back ups and losing all my files etc.

A few years back I bought a copy of Ghost, and it's somewhere around here, but I dont remember anything about it.

So I'm thinking I should do one of the following:



Load up Ghost and make an image of my HD (can this be saved to a DVD, or is it too big...and if so, how best to save the image?)

Get an external backup HD (wouldnt mind doing this, as I could backup the wife's laptop as well....I could actually function with one of these if my main HD failed, couldnt I?)

Get a new HD from Newegg and do a disk copy (havent messed with another HD or disk copy in forever, so no real experience there)

Any recommendations? (just got a small bonus from work, so could spend a couple hundred dollars for peace of mind here)

Thanks!

RM

Network attached storage.

If that is a bit much, external HD's are fine.

Tho, look into BartPE, a more flexible solution to making images than ghost.

Ghost can usually split files so they will fit on DVDs, however restoring from a second hard drive is considerably faster than restoring from DVDs.

If your OS and files are larger than 8 GB forget DVDs, since by then you are pushing 3 disks and an excessively long time to write/read them all. Also most operating systems/programs/games/etc complete images would take well over 50 GB to backup. That would be into the 12+ DVD range which would take an eternity to complete and be a royal pain sorting all the disks too.

Whole disk images are a good way to backup the system and never have to worry about a thing, but each individual backup requires a fair amount of time to complete and the storage requirements are pretty demanding.

Just mirroring the files you couldn't live without is much faster, but restoring the whole system takes much longer if something really were to go wrong.

so large external HD then?

can I backup a whole disk for my system and my wife's as well on the same ext. HD?

any links to a good candidate HD?

Is http://mozy.com/ worth it at all?

You can backup as many machines as you want on one HD as long as you make sure that…

1. The connection is compatible with all machines.
2. You properly Partition & Format the HD to take into account any older OS’s IE: Fat32 for win95.

Plenty of External HDs come with backup software, both of mine did, but I never used it, because I like my Iomega backup software. I’m sure you can find something that will do the job.

we both have win xp ... same OS.
We both have 120gb of data for the most part.
There's a bunch on newegg...dunno really what to look for.

Isaac...thanks for the link, but I dont think I want my data backed up online...

Backup to image files on the external rather than actually mirroring the disks, you can then use a working computer to restore the image if you need too and its easier to manage the images from different computers that way.

Isaac wrote:Is http://mozy.com/ worth it at all?

Mozy rocks!!!

If I backup my current HD (which has XP 32bit) to my external HD, when I load windows 7 64 bit, will I be able to access the data on the external HD?

yep.

I used WinPE 2.0 and a copy of Ghost recently to backup my WinXP HDD to an external USB drive.

Got a 320GB Seagate a few months ago for 70 bucks, I imagine they are cheaper now.

What I would do (given I have the money) is I would buy an external drive and save a compressed archive to it. I use WinRAR to do such, and when compressing a RAR archive I also save the NTFS file streams (option in advanced tab). If I am backing up a system drive (ie windows drive), I would use imaging software to make it. Ghost will copy the whole drive in its current condition so it would be as big as your drive is. A compressed archive can be quite a bit smaller, saving room for future backups.

For an external hard drive, I would get one of these. For a secondary internal hard drive, I would get one of these; I prefer the enterprise grade over home grade mostly for the 5 year warranty. I have one older model and it's the most reliable drive I've ever owned.

Zantor wrote:What I would do (given I have the money) is I would buy an external drive and save a compressed archive to it. I use WinRAR to do such, and when compressing a RAR archive I also save the NTFS file streams (option in advanced tab). If I am backing up a system drive (ie windows drive), I would use imaging software to make it. Ghost will copy the whole drive in its current condition so it would be as big as your drive is. A compressed archive can be quite a bit smaller, saving room for future backups.

Ghost supports compression when you make image files and can save a considerable amount of space depending on the content of the drive.

Okay. I wasn't aware of that. Thanks, Krom.

My wife and I currently use two external usb hard drives for backup. They are getting incredibly cheap. We back up everything important from both computers onto one of the drives, and about once a month we swap that drive out with the one in the bank safety deposit box.

I know, the safety deposit box sounds paranoid, but I AM paranoid. A USB backup at home protects against hardware failure, but it doesn't protect against theft, fire, or flood.

A network backup solution would provide some of the same protection, but I don't like giving my data to someone else, and I don't trust that they won't go under and disappear right when I need them.

Kilarin wrote: I know, the safety deposit box sounds paranoid, but I AM paranoid. A USB backup at home protects against hardware failure, but it doesn't protect against theft, fire, or flood.

Doesn’t sound paranoid to me, I keep my most important files on a thumb drive, and on my person most of the time, for that very reason.

I bought a Toshiba 500gb external drive.
The price was the same at bestbuy as on newegg (with shipping). I'll ghost a copy of my hd, and copy my wifes files over to it...should make upgrading to win 7 much easier.

Thanks for the help everyone!