Re: Casper 5 - One for Anna

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On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:08:53 -0700, "Bill in Co."
<not_really_here@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Richie Hardwick wrote:
On Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:59:25 -0700, "Bill in Co."
<not_really_here@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Those different, dated backups are ALSO very nice to have on hand in
case you've inadvertently backed up a hosed system where you haven't
discovered that it is hosed until after your most recent backup has
been made.

Can't do that with Casper, because it only has ONE "backup" to restore
from.


OK, I'm STILL confused about some of this, even after all the discussions
we've had here before on this, including some with Anna. You say Casper
has only ONE backup to restore from, but I thought with Casper you could
also make multiple, partition type clone backups to the backup drive,
storing several different partition copies over there, so that you could
choose which one (somewhat analogous to which image) to restore from.

IOW, if my intenal source drive has a 40 GB system and program partition,
and that's the only thing I'm ever backing up and restoring, couldn't
Casper
save different dated partition type clones of that on the backup drive?
I
guess they'd all have to have different drive letters though, which may
be a
bit messy for me.

NO. A clone is a clone is a clone and is only ONE backup.

First operation is to clone the source drive... i.e., make another
drive an exact copy of the source drive.

One can then make at-will "incremental" clones or updates of the
original clone, resulting each time in the other drive being an exact
copy of the source drive once again. Incremental clones take far less
time to complete, and that's the beauty of them.

There is only ONE clone, no matter how many "incremental" clone
operations are performed.

I hope you understand it now. You have certainly not had a shortage
of help trying to bring you up to speed on this.

Richie Hardwick

Well, I'm a tad old, so please give me some more allowance here.

I'm a tad old myself: I've been retired for over a year.

You are saying then that the backup drive can ONLY store ONE copy of the
source partition (or drive), period. One, and only one backup can be
stored, no matter what. If you want another, you'll have to delete the
first one.

Stop thinking "backup" when talking about cloning. A CLONE is a HARD
DRIVE OR A PARTITION. It is an exact duplicate of another hard drive
or partition. Got that so far????

When you "clone a drive" or "clone a partition" you make a different
drive or partition an exact copy of the source drive/partition. If
your source drive/partition changes, then you have to clone it again,
or with Casper you do an incremental clone.

IOW, it is impossible to save multiple partition-based clones on ONE backup
hard drive (that is, can't save more than ONE of anything on the backup
drive, if one uses Casper).

Stop thinking "backup" when talking about Casper and start thinking
"duplicate drive/partition". You can have as many cloned drives as
you have spare hard drives. You can have as many cloned partitions as
you have spare partitions.

But there is another option that some programs like BING (BootIT NG) will
allow, however. With BING, you CAN store multiple (different dated) backup
partition copies (of the source partition) on ONE single backup drive.
These are NOT image backups, they are *partition* backups

You are responsible for your own confusion here because you won't nail
down the proper terms for what you're talking about. You are bouncing
around/combining the terms "backup", "image" and "clone".

An "image" is a file. A "clone" is a hard drive or a partition. Both
can be a "backup".

(I'd almost call them cloned partition backups). So it gets a bit confusing (at
least to me).

Use the word "clone" ONLY when you are talking about making a drive or
partition an exact copy of another drive or partition. Do NOT
continue to use it interchangeably with "image" or "copy", and don't
even use it WITH either of those terms.

A disk can be imaged or cloned. ATI can do both. Casper can only
clone a disk.

A partition can be imaged or cloned. ATI can image a partition, but
not clone one. Casper cannot image a partition, but it can clone one.

From your description of BING, it is apparent that it images
partitions. BECAUSE if it CLONED the partitions, a BUNCH OF PARTITIONS
would be the end result, not a bunch of files.

That said, I'm not here to discuss BING because I've not used it for
maybe 8 or 9 years.

If you are still confused, then you'll have to stay confused. I can't
make it any simpler for you.

Richie Hardwick
.

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