help in reviewing clones

I finally got my machine to where I now have an 80gb usb hard drive.

If I understand clones (used true image backup before), I can make a usb hard drive copy of my entire disk. Should have:

1. Settings for my machine
2. Pictures
3. documents
4. outlook express
5. Favorites

In effect, it will give me a total hard drive I can copy back to my machine in the event of a failure. Right?

When you do this, and come to files which may already be on the main machine hard drive, will it keep the program going and ignore/skip over those areas---yet fill in what's missing?

Anything to watch out for?

 

You need to make an adjustment in your terminology to match the way Acronis uses "clone." With ATI, "clone" means making a target drive just like a source drive -- esentially copies everything over -- you get one drive per clone.


An image backup, again following ATI, is a file that is made that contains everything you specify. If you specify a full disk image backup, then the file, which has a tib extenstion, contains all bytes from the soruce drive needed to restore to that or another drive. When you restore, everything on the drive being restored to is erased and the backup image is written onto that drive in place of what was there.

Alternatively, you can make a file-by-file backup and specify what files you want to backup and, when you use that tib file to restore, you can specify whether to restore files to original location or a new location. You can also specify a choice of 1) overwrite existing files, 2) overwrite existing file if it is older, and 3) Do not overwrite existing file.

If you make more than one backup, say at diff times, then you can have multiple versions of a file backed up, and a choice of which version of a file you want to keep or restore.

 

Great info. Thanks.

Does the external usb need to be at least your main machine hard drive size for the clone?

 

Nope. ACtually, since ATI only copies the sectors that are in use, and not the empty ones or ones not needed (like the page file or hibernation file which windows rebuilds whenyou reboot), the target disk for the backup file only needs to be big enough to what's on the source disk, less some compensation for compression. So if you are only using up say 20 GB on a 60GB drive, you can fit a full bckup of that 60GB drive on a drive with 20GBs of space available. This is why you can fit more than one backup file on a disk, unlike cloning where you get one copy of drive per target drive.

For example, I have about 17 GB os space used on my system drive on this pc, but a full image backup file, with normal compresion, is only about 11GB. So I can fit about ten of these backups on one drive that is 120 GB in size.

The amount of compression varies with the kind of filesl being backed up. Already compressed files like zip archives, mp3 and jpgs, don't compress much at all if any but some data files compress about 70-80%.

 

I don't think you fully grasp the difference between Clone and Backup (Image) yet. Be clear in your mind before you proceed.

 

No. You're right. Maybe I don't understand the Acronis clone.

I'm thinking the Acronis clone is a virtual image (which is why it can be on less disk space than the full, mirror one), not a mirror one. If this is wrong, I need further explanation.

To me, the True Image backup does backup many areas I want. But---not settings and other misc programs.

The clone would backup everything on my whole machine. That way, if hard drive failed, and a tech got it going again, I could use the clone to make a reproduction of my main machine drive.

And yes, I understand it erases what's there, and make new copies. That's good.

 

Okay, let me take a stab at this.

If you Clone a drive, you can then take that drive and put it in place of the original and have an immediately bootable drive just like the original.

If you make a Backup (Image) of a drive, the Backup file has to be restored (the Recovery feature in True Image) to another drive and only then will that drive be bootable like the original.

In both cases, you will end up with a drive that is identical to the original - all your files, setting, programs, everything will be there as they were on the original.

The Backup Image is a compressed file which is why it has to go through the restore process on to another drive to make that drive like the original.

Any clearer?

 

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/notes.htm#14

What is the difference between an "image" and a "clone"?

 

Also, the ATI user guide is a very good place to refer to learn about the program.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/docs/

That plus links at the bottom of any post by GroverH and you've pretty much got the whole yards.

 

That is not correct. A Full Backup (or Full Image) of your drive would contain everything: OS, applications, your files, settings, prefs... everything!

What you want is Full Backups, not clone.

 

I'm reading this. In other words I may have everything backwards. The full backup will contain everything, then?

 

Let me repeat what I said previously, in message #7:

"In both cases, you will end up with a drive that is identical to the original - all your files, setting, programs, everything will be there as they were on the original.

 

YES! .

 

Hello rbig,

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.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov