Clone As Backup Question

[MrTea]

I am using TI 11 on a windows xp desktop.
I want to clone my c: drive to another internal harddrive.
My goal is to create a second bootable harddrive, so that in the event of a failure of the 1st drive, I can boot to the 2nd drive and continue working.

I have read in this forum where people have run into issues with cloning drives like this, such as BSDs when rebooting after cloning.

I know that the manual does not recommend using this as a backup strategy but I am curious if anyone has been successful in implementing this type of backup strategy using True Image.

I am currently using another product that does this but for other reasons I would like to drop usage of this product and use True Image exclusively.

Let me know if you need more information or if I was not clear in what I am trying to do. Thanks in advance for any advice.

[DwnNdrty]

Sure you can do that, as long as you are aware of the precaution to remove or disconnect the cloned drive before booting with the original for the first time after making the clone. After you boot for the first time you can reconnect the cloned drive.

The easiest way to do this is to put that second internal drive in a mobile rack. In fact put both drives in mobile racks. That way it will take seconds to swap booting drives. Another advantage of this is that you can remove one of the drives from the computer so it isn't prone to power outages (unless you're on a battery backup) or to virus/trojan infections.

[MrTea]

I saw a reference to that in another post. I was hoping that was some kind of bug in a previous release that has since been fixed.

Disconnecting the drive before the first boot simply is not do-able for me. It looks like I will have to continue to use the other software for this particular backup. I will continue to use TI for other, not so critical backups.

Thanks for your response.

[Acronis Support]

Hello MrTea,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for delayed response.

Please be aware that there are two approaches available:

Clone Disk - migrates/copies the entire contents of one disk drive to another;

Backup - creates a special archive file for backup and disaster recovery purposes;

Please take a look at this FAQ article explaining the difference between Clone Disk and Backup approaches in more detail.

Actually, Clone Disk approach is usually used to upgrade the hard drive (e.g. install a larger disk), while Backup approach is basically dedicated for the complete data backup and disaster recovery purposes. Since you are interested in backing up your hard drive for the disaster recovery purposes, we would recommend you to follow Backup approach.

Moreover, there are several advantages of creating an image over the disk cloning procedure such as: you can create an image without rebooting your PC, image creation can be scheduled for the particular point in time, Acronis True Image allows you to create incremental and differential images, image archive contains only the actual data and so it has a smaller size, images are ordinary files and so they can be stored on any type of the supported media, etc. However, the final choice is always up to your needs.

You can find more information on how to use Acronis True Image 11 Home in the respective User's Guide.

We may also recommend you to have a look at this article for explanations of some peculiarities of cloning Windows operating systems.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

[shieber]

The need to have only one Windows "bbot" drive in the machine when booting into windows is not a bug in Acronis but an artifact of the way windows treats boot and system drives. It does not tolerate two in the same machine and will mark one volume boot and one the system drive -- not necessarily the same drive if you have two in the machine when windows boots -- that's what leads to trouble. But, usually, all that will happen is that the original drive will be treated as the boot and system drive and the clone will be marked as being neither and no longer be bootable.

Backing up is something that one should do often and restoring something that one should have to do rarely. So it's preferable, as a matter of convenience, to not have to reboot to do a backup. This points towards creating backup files instead of doing clones. Also, not the least benefit of creating backup files is that you usually can fit several on a drive whereas, with cloning, you get only one "backup" per drive. Having mulitiple backups allows you to have a history from which to select for restoring plus it multiplies the odds that you will have a good backup on hand.

Also, you can access the files in a backup files, in the event you need to copy one or more to another location for any reason (compare versions or whatever). With a clone, to access it, it must be installed at boot, and that
takes you back to the orriginal problem with two "boot" drives being present at boot up.

Basically, a clone is very limited in convenience, applicability and utility compared to a backup file.

Originally Posted by MrTea

I saw a reference to that in another post. I was hoping that was some kind of bug in a previous release that has since been fixed.

Disconnecting the drive before the first boot simply is not do-able for me. It looks like I will have to continue to use the other software for this particular backup. I will continue to use TI for other, not so critical backups.

Thanks for your response.