Which drive to use for backup?

[mn072065]

Ok just an opinion please. I have 4 hard drives in my desktop, Alienware Aurora ALX system. 2 WD Velociraptor 300gb 10k each, 1 velociraptor 600gb 10k, and 500 GB WD 7200. I have my OS on 1 of the 300gb velociraptor. But i have all my image bucks using acronis true image on the 500GB regular 7200 hard drive. Is this ok or do you guys think i should use one of the Velociraptor for my backup image drive. Thanks for your opinion.

[rcubed]

Ok just an opinion please. I have 4 hard drives in my desktop, Alienware Aurora ALX system. 2 WD Velociraptor 300gb 10k each, 1 velociraptor 600gb 10k, and 500 GB WD 7200. I have my OS on 1 of the 300gb velociraptor. But i have all my image bucks using acronis true image on the 500GB regular 7200 hard drive. Is this ok or do you guys think i should use one of the Velociraptor for my backup image drive. Thanks for your opinion.

If you keep backups on the same drive as the data it is kind of pointless if you are trying to insure being able to recover the data in the case of a failed drive. If you have the original data on one of the Raptors you should be ok using the regular drive for BU's. I use a docking station connected through an E-SATA (USB also available, but slower) to save my backups. That way I can always use another drive to hold backup data if needed. Just pull backup drive out of docking station and plug in another. Also with the docking station you only need to power up the drive when you do a backup or restore. Should result in longer time before failure of backup drive. All HD's fail it's just a question of when. Usually by Murphy's Law at the most inconvenient time.

rcubed

[mn072065]

So backups won't be faster if i use the velociraptors? No i keep data in separate drive and use the 500 gb to do main os image, but i just realize i will now do an image backup of the data drive too, even thou it's in a separate drive.

[DB83]

Groundhog Day !

Backups are not for speed. They are for security and reliability. Are you doing these backups in real time ie the OS backup is changed when the OS drive changes ?

If it is a real time backup them speed may play a small part but the WD is fast enough anyway.

If this is not a real time back up that is to say you do an occasional manual backup then I would not even use a HDD. Back up your data to dvds. I seem to recall you have one or five of these to choose from.

As for the back up of the OS, there is no guarantee that if that drive failed you could restore the OS on to another HDD.

[mn072065]

Thanks too much to backup on dvd's my backup is 40GB. But i agree, thanks, speed should not be a factor, i should backup slow and acurate. Thanks

[rcubed]

mn072065,
In Acronis if you back up all the partitions on the drive that contains the OS, if the drive dies you should be able to install a new drive and restore all the partitions on that drive from the backup file. The only issue I don't remember is whether or not you have to restore the MBR. If I remember correctly, if you format the drive with partitions before doing the restore you wouldn't need to restore the MBR. It would normally only be used if the MBR on the original drive got scrogged and you are trying to restore it. The MBR would be different if the new drive was a different manufacturer or a different size drive. I would always recommend doing a verify on the backup.

I've used this technique when I replaced a 500G with a 1TB drive. I use a stand alone partition program to partition the drive before doing the restore. The following is a link to a free one that has a bootable CD image available http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html. In this case you can even change the partition sizes on the new drive before restoring. I think the only rule is any new partition has to be as big as the original partition size. Acronis cleans the partitions on the drive before the restore is done. To do this you have to use the stand alone CD version of Acronis (it can be made from Acronis while in Win - I have the Home 2009 edition, look under Tools.) and boot that to do the restore. Note if you have the backup on a RAID configuration, the boot disk doesn't understand RAID drives. If you use a new drive you should full format all the partitions on the new drive before using it or run the diagnostic programs for example from WD. I've had new drives that had bad sectors. For a large drive it can take a long time, but it's worth doing.

Backing up the OS files and any software partitions (I put my software in a separate partition) makes it really easy to restore things if a new piece of software or an OS update messes up your computer. Just go back to the most recent backup. You might have to reinstall programs or updates you have done since the last BU, but it's a lot better than having to do a total install.

Hope this helps.

rcubed

[Bjs]

Personally you shouldn't solely rely on HD's for storage of something which is considered "mission critical" ... put at least one copy onto dvd's

Ive seen systems using acronis in which two drives contained the backup and both were never tested and failed at the same time ... data recovery isnt cheap when your talking gigabytes.

[mn072065]

But at 40-50gb backup, putting on dvd's would mean alot of dvd's. Don't know if that's efficient. Don't you think?