What is recommended backup strategy?

Fairly standard system:

• XP Pro SP3 on C: (also includes outlook.pst)
• D: for data files
• NAS for backups

I am given the following choices:

1. My Computer
2. My Data
3. System State
4. E-Mail
5. Application Settings

Given that I do understand English would you think that the following is a reasonable strategy, or do you have suggestions for improvements?

1. Run My Computer => Secure Zone weekly
2. Run System Data to NAS nightly
3. Run E-mail to NAS nightly

If that's ok, should I use incremental or differential, and how best to manage versioning/consolidation?

 

From a security standpoint: the ideal backup would be where a backup is made every few moments and all old backups are sved forever. You would then be able to restore from any moment in the past andyou woul dnever have any data at risks.

From a resource conservation standpoint, you wuould only make a backup just before you needed one and so use up almost no time and no diskspace.

From a convenience standpoint, the program would run entirely automatically, and take virtually no time to backup or to restore but be able to employ precisely your own tailored options every time.

You have to make trade offs in each of those categories. Those trade-off choices are not the same for everyone.

I would recommend avoiding using the SEcure Zone -- more likely to cause probs than sovle any. Get an external disk so you can save you backups away from the PC. Be sure the Boot CD works on you hardware -- do a test backup or at least go through the steps right up to but not including the final "proceed".

How many backups are enough, how long should they be kept, how frequently do you need to backup (how much data can you afford to lose), how much diskspace can yo afford to buy. . . ?

These are personal choices, there is no right or wrong about it. It's like asking what's the best way to build a house.

Start with a simple plan as as you begin to understand things, consider whether you should customize your plan to better suit you needs.

 

Hello pszilard,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

I would recommend you to follow this link to look through video tutorials. See video tutorial #2 “Backup strategies and default backup options”.

The latest build of Acronis True Image Home 2009 (9646) has the ability to create desired number of incremental/differential backup archives after the full backup. The functionality is similar to Backup Location Management in earlier product versions (Acronis True Image 10.0 Home and Acronis True Image 11 Home). You can find it in Optional Steps -> Backup Method while performing backup wizard setup.

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev