Question about Image Backups

[Rico]

Hi Guys,

Long ago I made a "full backup" then weekly "Increments", it's my understanding that a restore will use the full backup + a choice of the increments.

I've moved My Desktop + a portion of My Documents from d to c drive. I now have have an increment, with desktop & documents on c.

I believe the full backup has desktop & documents on d. Should I do a restore choosing the increment with desktop & documents on c drive will this be ok?

Or should I format the ext hdd & now start with a new full backup?

Thanks
Rico

[Kerodo]

I am trying to understand and figure out the MS Backup stuff here also. I am doing a full normal backup today, and was going to just overwrite that each week on Sunday with a new full normal backup. The incremental and differential options are confusing to me, and I'm not quite sure how it all is supposed to work.

In your case, I think I would start over and do a new full backup of the setup as you want it to be now. Seems cleaner to me..

I just noticed youre talking "image" backups, so perhaps you're not even using the same software. I also have a full HD image, but I don't want to run an image each time. I'm thinking a regular standard "backup" will do for data.

[Rico]

Hi Kerodo,

I see were neighbors, how about that!

In my case with Acronis TI 10, after the initial first 'full backup' (image), I choose Increment for the subsequent backups. I do this on Sunday's, make increments. So now I have 37 increments, I can cherry pick which week I would like to restore to. Acronis allows notes to be jotted down regarding the increment. So I could choose, where I want to go back in time, based on the notes. Example on restore I see all 37 increments, so I could choose increment #30 (or any increment number) hit restore & Acronis uses the full backup + the 30th increment, when it's done I'm seven weeks in the past. By using increments you save disc space + you can cherry pick, where to go back in time.

Take Care
Rico

[Kerodo]

-{ Quote: "Hi Kerodo,

I see were neighbors, how about that!

In my case with Acronis TI 10, after the initial first 'full backup' (image), I choose Increment for the subsequent backups. I do this on Sunday's, make increments. So now I have 37 increments, I can cherry pick which week I would like to restore to. Acronis allows notes to be jotted down regarding the increment. So I could choose, where I want to go back in time, based on the notes. Example on restore I see all 37 increments, so I could choose increment #30 (or any increment number) hit restore & Acronis uses the full backup + the 30th increment, when it's done I'm seven weeks in the past. By using increments you save disc space + you can cherry pick, where to go back in time.

Take Care
Rico" }-
Hi Rico, yes it looks like we're pretty close here in the LA area.... small world! I have seen a few others on Wilders close by also.

It sounds like I want one normal full backup, and then incrementals. How much space do all those incrementals take up though? I guess not that much. I have a 500 gig HD for backup/image and data purposes.... that should do. I was wondering if tons of incrementals would eat up too much space...

[Rico]

Hi Kerodo,

For me, home user using Acronis 10 (default settings) 1 full backup + 37 increments = 146 gb. I have 86.1 gb free. I could probably save a couple gb using tighter compression, but so far that's 37 weeks I'm not complaining. Keep in mind your mileage may vary.

Take Care
Rico

[Rico]

Hello,

Can someone please comment, I know we have more than a few image guru's here:

-{ Quote: "I've moved My Desktop + a portion of My Documents from d to c drive. I now have have an increment, with desktop & documents on c.

I believe the full backup has desktop & documents on d. Should I do a restore choosing the increment with desktop & documents on c drive will this be ok?

Or should I format the ext hdd & now start with a new full backup?" }-

Thanks
Rico

[Kerodo]

-{ Quote: "Hi Kerodo,

For me, home user using Acronis 10 (default settings) 1 full backup + 37 increments = 146 gb. I have 86.1 gb free. I could probably save a couple gb using tighter compression, but so far that's 37 weeks I'm not complaining. Keep in mind your mileage may vary.

Take Care
Rico" }-
Thanks Rico, I will probably give it a try with incrementals then......

[Peter2150]

Hi Rico

I didn't comment at first as I don't have the separation in the sense I don't partition and everything is on my C: drive.

The only place I bother with Incrementals at all is I let ShadowProtect's continous incrementals run on my business machine.

But even at that if I am going to do a major upgrade, I will Image the system manually doing a complete image and then restore to test it.

The problem with a lot of incrementals is the increase, significantly, the time to restore, etc. Disk space is cheap, so I mainly do full images, and keep the 4 most recent.

Not sure why you were asking about formatting as I don't understand the need.

Pete

[Kerodo]

-{ Quote: "The problem with a lot of incrementals is the increase, significantly, the time to restore, etc. Disk space is cheap, so I mainly do full images, and keep the 4 most recent.

" }-

Thanks interesting to know about the time to restore on incrementals.

I am thinking now that just full images as I have been doing is the way to go. I don't really have data that changes a lot, and anything of real value I tend to put on a DVD for backup anyway, so for me an image is probably the best bet. So far it has worked out well. That let's me save my setup, experiment at will, and then return to what I had easily and quickly...

[rdsu]

How about to have this schedule:

Clean Install: Full Backup, and keep it.

Every Month:
- 1º day: Full Backup
- 1º week: Incremental Backup
- 2º week: Differential Backup
- 3º week: Incremental Backup

Save the Backups as you want...

?

[Rico]

Hello RDSU,

Sounds like a good plan, however when it comes to imaging, backups, & restore, I'm still a noob. What do you think about:

-{ Quote: "I've moved My Desktop + a portion of My Documents from d to c drive. I now have have an increment, with desktop & documents on c.

I believe the full backup has desktop & documents on d. Should I do a restore choosing the increment with desktop & documents on c drive will this be ok?

Or should I format the ext hdd & now start with a new full backup?" }-

Take Care
Rico

[rdsu]

Rico,

Check if these descriptions help you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup#Data_repository_models