which version

Before I upgrade, which version will let me burn a boot up cd and then back up my complete system (with OS) to dvd's?

 

any opinions?? from tried and tested users.

 

Theoretically v9 introduced one step DVD burning - it works for many, and for some they still need to save to an ISO and then burn that to DVD.

V10 follows on from v9. However, if you're buying electronically you'll be buying v10, only in physical shops are you likely to find v9.

Colin

 

Thanks, I will buy in a shop so I have the disc.

 

You are aware that with the electronic version, you can make your own boot CD - and you'll need to do this for each new build for the version that comes out - the shop version may or may not be the latest build.

I always keep a copy of the last two install files + licence info on my external backup drive along with the tib images. Just in case I can't get on the interent to re-download the electronic version if everything goes haywire.

Colin

 

I wasn't aware. thanks for pointing that out. I wondered about an external but I have two internal HD already. That is why I was thinking of using DVD's.

 

I always image to the second internal HD and up to now all the restores have been done from there. Some selected images get copied to the external drive and before I clean the latter I copy one image or two to DVDs. Altoghether, few images find their way to DVD but nevertheless I regularly split the images into 1492 MB files (USB drives may also fail over large files) and when I burn them, I do it real slow (4x on a 12x burner with 16x disks), with Roxio.

Talking of burning speed, the inability to manage it within TI direct burning is the critical deficiency of that feature, IMO.

 

Hi Rasputin

I suggest you try it and see if DVD writing works for you. Note that there have been issues with optical media which are down to ATI. However, even if this problem did not exist and DVDs were written perfectly every time, I would still find them too fragile to trust my data to. All it takes is one scratch or an accidental drop and you have problems. Because the validation of the images is based on a checksum it only takes one bit to be wrong and the image will not restore.

Not only that, I keep backups of various partitions, produced on different schedules, some done daily going back over a four week cycle. That means that I would need to be present to ensure disks were inserted - rather than just let it happen automatically to a harddisk when I was asleep. It means that I would need to have some means of physically storing and managing lots of disks in a way which allowed me to know which ones I needed to select that day to overwrite. The fact that I would probably be using RW media would mean that the disks would be being rehandled every few days increasing the chances of wear and tear and damage.

Constrast that with a second disk drive. Backups can be scheduled and I don't need to be there. Using a simple directory structure the logical groupings of backups are simple and painless to setup. Finally, backing up and restoring is generally quicker too.

So, yes Acronis have let some people down with their optical media functionality, but my perception is that it is improving all the time, and you will generally find that it either works for you or it doesn't. However in my own view, this is not the significant part of the problem. The problem is that relying on only optical media for important data tends to be risky.

That said Optical media has its place for making an occaisional (2-step) copy of an image made on the second disk. The reasons for this are simply to reduce the risk of that the disk copy gets wiped or goes corrupt, and to allow easy remote archive.

F.

 

OK , thaks for all the info. now I have another queston:
If I already have an OS on my second hard drive ,shoould I just make a new partion to save my latest image to? could htis image then be updated whenever I want ?