Re: Backing up entire system partition : image or clone ?
- From: "DL" <address@invalid>
- Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:43:15 +0100
In edition;
Over many years I have found the most likely cause of failure (excluding
virus/malaware) is HD followed by pwr supply / motherboard.
Even in a small home business enviroment you need to consider how important
your data is, and how much downtime you can stand whilst you recover.
Personnally I keep three seperate data backups one of which is offsite,
mirrored drives using a dedicated raid card with hotswap, and incremental
clone of the system, verified after each process.
I can connect to my important data on three seperate sys, if required.
"sai.an" <saian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5B2BDAF5-221D-4836-A039-80860E4C64EB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Jim" wrote:
"sai.an" <saian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5E2C8687-CF02-4924-844C-F19296690CA9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I am operating a small home-office network, consisting of 2 almost
identical
PC's, both having work environments (XP + umpteen applications) that
are
identical at this moment, but are likely to drift apart in the future.
In addition, I have an external HDD of 400 GByte capacity, just for
safety
(it connects to anyone of the PC's via Firewire and for the moment
hosts
only
data).
My goal is now to be protected against the failure of anyone of my 2
built-in HDD's : one of them has been running for 4 years...
I wish I could organize in such a way that -should one of these HDD's
break
down- I could rapidly configure a replacement HDD by plugging it as
slave
into the healthy computer and loading it with the needed complete
system,
which I would obtain from a backup in the external unit.
So, my question is : should I backup my "C" partitions into the
external
unit by using an "image" process (with which software ? I have
Datakeeper),
which means having to do later a "restore" operation, or should I do a
cloning operation (I have Casper) and be ready for "cloning the clone"
?
And, last but not least, which type of ad-hoc partitions should I
create
in
my external unit for receiving the backups ?
Many thanks to those who will have the patience to read me and to give
me
advice.
--
From Claude, with greetings from Paris.
I usually associate "clone" with "make an identical disk". This is the
quickest way to replace
an entire disk. Quite a few programs can clone disks; the one that I use
is
Acronis. It does
take a long time to clone one disk to another.
Another way to accomplish what I understand that you wish to do is to use
a
backup program
to create a full backup file of the system partition. Such a file can be
placed almost anywhere
you wish. I do make a system backup, but the file resides on another
disk.
My reason for not
using a partition on the system disk is that there can be no assurance
that
such a partition can
be read on a disk with another partition failure.
Acronis contains a method for creating a CD which can recover Acronis
backup
files. In addition,
Acronis (and perhaps others) provides a plugin for BartPE.
What I would do, and you may not be willing to do such, is to buy
replacement disks for each computer.
I would then clone the system disk for a given computer onto its
replacement
disk.
Jim
Thanks, Jim.
I understand your explanations and I would say that your answer to my
questions (or my "dilemma") is "you can do it both ways, image or clone" ;
am
I right ?
However I would like to pick your brains a little more :
- is an "image" of a complete system (OS plus...) reliable once it has
been
"restored" into a new HDD ? I am afraid that the image+restore process
might
introduce some errors that would defeat my purpose (not having to populate
the system partition of a replacement HDD with Windows XP and Office and
apps
and recreate all personalized settings etc).
- if I clone my existing system into the external unit, cloning means
making
an exact copy, bit for bit ; therefore, it seems to me that -when it
becomes
necessary- I could clone from the clone into my replacement disk. Is this
baby talk or can it work that way ? If it is workable, do I have to place
the
interim clone into a partition of the external HDD that would be
configured
like a system partition (i.e. "primary") or can it be hosted by an
ordinary
"logical" partition ?
Best greetings,
Claude
.
- References:
- Prev by Date: Re: Backing up entire system partition : image or clone ?
- Next by Date: Re: Restore cd
- Previous by thread: Re: Backing up entire system partition : image or clone ?
- Next by thread: Re: Backing up entire system partition : image or clone ?
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
