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| Thread ID: 50018 | 2004-10-07 20:05:00 | Drive imaging versus backup | garyasta (1151) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 279026 | 2004-10-07 20:05:00 | I currently have an automatic backup program that runs each day and provides incremental backup of various directories and files to a separate drive. At irregular intervals, i do a complete backup and copy ths to CDs. Are the incremental backups only done on the changed files each day, i.e. if only file 'x' has been changed, is that the only one backed up to the backup file? Would a daily CD copy of the backup only contain the changed files and stand as a copy of the changes that would need to be considered if using the earlier full backup to re-establish a crashed system? in comparing 'backup' to 'drive imaging', what advantages are there between each, and if a drive was to be imaged with compression, what is the likely compression size of a 10Gb drive. It would be of no use to image a drive if there was no media suitable to copy to. Gary |
garyasta (1151) | ||
| 279027 | 2004-10-07 20:09:00 | use norton ghost to do your images it'll write em to cd and it'll compress em so that you get just over 1Gb on each cd.......you can also use it with dvd writer if you have one . Ghopst will fit 10gb on to 2 dvds or about 9 cds | drcspy (146) | ||
| 279028 | 2004-10-07 20:12:00 | takes a while to ghost to cd /dvd because those drives cant write the same speed as ghosting to a hard drive . Ghost to a harddrive will run at around 700Mb/m - over 1Gb per min depending on other factors in the sytsem......that's what it runs at on my system, (P4 2.4Ghz on 800FSB) between 2 7200rpm ide drives. Takes about 20 something minutes to image my 16gb... if i recall correctly..... | drcspy (146) | ||
| 279029 | 2004-10-07 20:16:00 | Drive imaging copies the entire drive including the OS, programs and, unless you clear them out first, temp files, flotsam and jetsom etc etc. If you arent installing and uninstalling programs on a regular basis then drive imagining is a bit of an overkill for backup purposes. Best to just backup your files. ;-) | Fire-and-Ice (3910) | ||
| 279030 | 2004-10-07 21:18:00 | AS others have said, drive imaging copies everything on the drive, including boot sector and partition information. The difference is, a straight copy of all files is just that, a copy of the files. It cannot be used to rebuild the drive if you have a major failure, or you want to transfer your system to another hard drive. Drive imaging, OTOH is capable of recreating your system either on the same or another drive, but it isn't so good for backup purposes. Most imaging programs don't allow for extracting selected files, it's all or nothing generally. |
Photog (6247) | ||
| 279031 | 2004-10-07 21:46:00 | norton ghost has ghost explorer built in and that allows extraction of whatever you want selectively | drcspy (146) | ||
| 279032 | 2004-10-07 22:34:00 | Acronis's True Image 7 features in this month's PCW and offers similar capabilities to Norton Ghost including bare metal system restore, full and incremental images and an explore/extract function to recover single folders or files. It has two compression ratios. I used the normal setting to create an image on my HDD and about 10.5GB of data compressed into a 5.7GB image file. True Image 8 is available as a 22 MB download from Acronis.com. Price is $US49.99 which comes out at around $NZ81 depending on the exchange rate of the day. You can download a limited function trial copy to look at before you buy. |
Raymondo (5284) | ||
| 279033 | 2004-10-08 00:53:00 | Hi Guys Thanks for your responses regarding then imaging process.. Has anyone got ideas on the incremental backup situation? Cheers Gary |
garyasta (1151) | ||
| 279034 | 2004-10-08 02:13:00 | I also do a daily incremental backup to a separate HDD . I write to the same directory on the separate HDD each time, so it contains all the files, both changed and unchanged . If an incremental backup is performed and a file has not changed, then its not written . But it still exists on the backup drive, its just not updated (as its not changed) . If a file is deleted on the main drive, it remains on the backup drive . Its not deleted by the process . I then rotate the backup HDD every week, I have 4 spares (in removeable trays) . I take a CD or DVD copy of all current files on the main drive every week or therabouts, and archive those . All archived files and rotated HDD backups are kept in a fire rated safe . |
godfather (25) | ||
| 279035 | 2004-10-08 02:21:00 | Hi Godfather Many thanks . I guess this means that at any time, my backup files are up to date (on a separate partition) and a burn to cd of these files can be made at any time and will include all unchanged and all changed latest data, etc . Cheers Gary |
garyasta (1151) | ||
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