Snapshots are growing!

I have two snapshots at the present time and plan to make a third.
My 2 snapshots have grown to 7 GB's each on a fairly new computer and I will keep adding things.
For simplicity, if I have a 90 GB hd and use 30 gb's of it, then my snapshots will also grow to 30 GBS each and technically my hd will be full.
Is this correct? I'm I missing something here?
If it is, I guess I should start shopping for alot bigger HD! LOL
Thanks, Dan

 

its my strategy to keep int. drive almost empty,cause fast defrag,fast imaging and put the abundant stuff on ext. disks,also anchoring your documents,maybe lots off stuff in there ( my pictures ?) in normal situ.2 snapshots are enough and keep your offline and archives current than u good to go.

 

about systems i like it skinny.tranparent and simple,whats not in there(C:\) cannot be destroyed.

 

You may be missing 'Data Anchoring' If you don't use it then each snapshot is a complete copy of everything on the partition, so if like me you have a lot of music in the 'My Music folder' you will be replicating this to every snapshot, which is overkill and a waste of space imho. I data anchor 'My Documents' which leaves this folder out of the copy process and simply back that up once to another location using another backup program, thus my snapshots stay in and around 3-4 gig.

 

danny,
Tradetime is very right about this. If the folder "My Documents" is NOT anchored in FDISR, it means that all your personal data is included in EACH snapshot. In other words, if you have 2 snapshots your data is stored TWO times.
If you anchor "My Documents" your data is stored only ONE time.

I you don't separate your data from system files and store your data on ANOTHER partition, then it is better to ANCHOR the folder "My Documents", because that folder is always GROWING at least for most users.

 

Thanks for the replies and help.
I have anchored my documents as suggested and recommended.
When more is added to this file, is it automatically copied to what is anchored?
I ask because I didn't see any options to do this manually.
Thanks again!
Great program, by the way.
Rebooted several times. Very fast and does the job.

 

Erik may explain this better than I as he has much more experience with FD-ISR, but with the folder anchored it is outside the scope of the program, FD pays no more attention to this folder other than to allow each snapshot to access it, when you save to it, you save to it, there is nothing to be copied anywhere. The one important thing to remember is that if you value the contents of this folder back it up somewhere using another backup program. (windows has it's own backup utility if nothing else) as anchoring it you have now taken responsibility for this task, the advantage of course is you will only make one backup copy possibly to another drive, in my case it is backed up to another computer on my network.

It is a fascinating program, I have only been using it for a couple of weeks, but I have found it fairly straightforward to learn (with a little help from one or two members here) and can't really say I have found fault with it. Probably a disaster invitation there but so far so good.

 

Once "My Documents" is ANCHORED. The folder "My Documents" is excluded duriing each copy/update.
You can access your data in each snapshot and each updating in "My Documents" is kept.

This also means that your data isn't stored in your snapshots anymore, so you can't restore your data anymore via FDISR.
You only can restore your data via Image Backup. This is very important to be aware of.
In other words you have to backup DAILY, if you don't want to lose any data after a disaster.

That's why I store my data on another partition, that makes a separate backup of data alot easier and that's why I keep my updatings of TODAY, even when I have to restore my system partition completely.

 

Now I'm confused. It was my understanding that Data Anchoring is rebootable with either snapshot.
"Data Anchoring feature makes data files available to any snapshot that is booted."
"Data Anchoring provides a way of sharing files between snapshots."

Dan

 

Now I'm confused "Data Anchoring is rebootable" (?), what does that mean.
You can update "My Documents" in each snapshot, which is normally done in your work snapshot only, but it can be done in any other snapshot also.
It doesn't matter where you update "My Documents", because "My Documents" is not included in your snapshots anymore, because you anchored it.

This means that your data can't be recovered anymore via FDISR, only via Image Backup.
Since you have only one harddisk and one partition, you have to backup your entire harddisk each day.

 

The quotes in my last post where taken from their help file.
Archives,according to this are non bootable and can be stored to an external HD.
Is this, maybe, what you where referring to?
As you can tell, I've been re-reading their help files. Gonna get this down yet! LOL!

 

The way to think of 'Data Anchoring' is that your anchored files are communal. Without FD-ISR you have say a single partition drive C:\...on that partition we will have XP, and to keep it simple, nothing else.
Within XP is a the folder 'My Documents' where most people store their music files, video files photos etc in the 'my music' 'my photos', 'my videos' folders, and as such the 'My Documents' folder grows to considerable size.

Now we add FD-ISR and create a snapshot, the secondary snapshot, as your primary installation becomes your primary snapshot. This secondary snapshot is identical in every way to the first, so that on your hard drive you now have 2 of everything, there is a 'My Documents' folder in each snapshot, therefore on your hard drive you have 2 copies of every photo in 'My Documents' 2 copies of every video and 2 copies of every music file. If you now make a third snapshot you will have 3 of every one of thise and so on for every snapshot you make. Each snapshot will have its own set of photos, videos, and music.

To reduce the size of the snapshot we anchor the 'My Documents' folder, so that it is communal to all your snapshots. Once anchored it is left out of the copy process. Now when you make snapshots you have two or three snapshots, but they share the one 'My Documents' folder so on your hard drive there is only one of each photo, one of each music file and one of each video, all accessable from any snapshot. To protect the data in 'My Documents' you then make a single copy of it (perhaps using windows own backup) backed up to say an external drive

 

Thank you tradetime.
That's the way I was starting to understand it from the help files.
Your explanation is very clear and concise.