Incremental Image Back Ups or Full Back Ups?

[ginky4]

Should I be creating incremental image back ups or full image back ups? If I were to need to do a restore from an image would restoring from the latest incremental back up recover all of my files and operating system or would I need to restore from a full back up (.tib) image from an earlier date? Just wondering if it is better to do a full image back ups each time or would just doing incremental ones be ok?

[John Farrar]

Incrementals are fine as you save a lot of time backing up once you have the original full backup. When restoring from a backup you are given the option of which date backup you want to use so you do not necessarily have to use the last incremental backup if you don't want to. Hope this helps.
John

[ginky4]

But if I did use the most current incremental backup image would it restore my operating system, programs, and files?

[Ray Clare]

It sure will!. That said, I never use incrementals. Disk space is cheap, the backup only takes about 20 minutes, and if one of the backups is corrupted, I still have the others. Though that only happened once for me.

In the end, it's your choice -- isn't this fun!

[ginky4]

Ray Clare thats a good point.

If I ever needed to do a total restore and for some reason I only had 1 full back up and subsequent incremental backups I could potentially run the risk of my only full back up not working with the incrementals.

I like your idea of doing a complete full back up each time. That way if one full back up should not work I would have another one to pick from.

[shieber]

Just a couple of thoughts:


I think for many folks, a system disk, and most data, not counting pics, movies, and music will usually result in backups that run in 5-20 minutes. For those situations, full backups are an easy choice.

For the pics, movies, and music, one can easily have many tens of GBs and backups that take a hour or so to complete and the source files probobly don't change often except for adds. For those situation, incs/diffs can save significant time.

[TonyR]

I keep all my pixs and video files on my slave drive D.
that way it doesn't take forever to do backups or a restore.

[Long View]

ginky4 how is your machine set up ? as C: with windows, programs and data all on the one partition ? or as C: for windows and programs and D; for data.

I'm a big fan of keeping C: as small as possible. This allows for the restoration of a simple full image as quickly as possible without disturbing your data drive or partition.

[ginky4]

My system is set up with everything on my C Drive. That includes Windows XP, my installed programs, and all of my files.

[Long View]

well I would give serious consideration to partitioning your drive. at least think about it.

[ginky4]

I think for right now I am going to just do Full Backups each time. I really don't see the need for having both incremental backup and differential back ups . Why not just have one that will capture all of your most current data if you should need to restore?

If I ever need to restore from an image I want whatever method is going to restore all of my data including my operating system. Right now for me the only method that seems to be the safe bet is the Full Back Up.

[AaLF]

-{ Quote: "My system is set up with everything on my C Drive. That includes Windows XP, my installed programs, and all of my files." }-

Ginky4 I suggest you listen to LongView's advice. The best security protection is a partitioned C: Drive.

If you lose Windows XP - who cares -(almost).
If you lose your favorites - ouch.
If you lose My Documents - ouch.
If you lose all that near and dear to you built up by your sweat over months / years.........aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh.

I suggest that you partition the the C: Drive off with about 20GB and store your data in the newly created D: drive.

This way only Windows is at risk. Windows is where the crashes occur and its truly painful if it takes your personal files down with it. True image etc are not as safe as a partition. And the backUp file with 'Windows only' is nice and small.