Best practices for using the secure zone. It's full so how to avoid that / correct

It seems like a great program. but I'm missing the big picture (or is it the small picture / small details?!).

So I set up a secure zone on my PC. it's running TI workstation 10....

I walked through their wizard and it's creating incrementals after a single full...

now I get the message that the zone is full. Just like:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=157663&highlight=secure zone full

So you need to have at least 2 fulls (I always thought that's weird - you'd go from 100 days of backup with your single full 100 days ago and 100 incrementals.... and then to make space it deleted all of it and you go to 0 days of backup. so this is good that they are trying to avoid that...).

So how DO you set up the schedules / tasks to have it have 2 fulls? right? that's what it needs? 2 fulls? that run every x weeks alternating?

Thanks!

 

Yes you are missing the big picture. The secure zone is a POS. It is the worst feature ever thought of for a drive image program.
So you create a secure zone and store all your images there. Then your hard drive fails. Where are your images? ON that same hard drive in the secure zone that just failed. Failed drive = NO images to restore your system from.
Do yourself a REALLY BIG favor. Get rid of the secure zone and buy a external USB2 hard drive and use that to store your images on.

 

actually, I have the secure zone on a 2nd hard drive on the PC... But true - with a single hard drive, it crashes and you are SOL.

check out this article in the NY TImes today (thurs):

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/technology/04pogue.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

So let me rephrase the question... with / without the secure zone, what is the best practices for backing up data to another media? I was thinking of using 3 external hard drives and rotate them offsite weekly, with nightly backups. but how critical that the drives are swapped the day before a full backup? (full weekly, incremental daily, or how would you recommend it?).

and without secure zone, how do you deal with the hard drives filling up at some point - back to the original question - the fact that it should delete the old images when the hard drive is full.... nice... but how do you configure the system for that?

 

Re: Best practices for using the secure zone. It's full so how to avoid that / corre

The most appropriate use of the Secure Zone is in a situation where the user has (for whatever reason) access to only 1 hard disk - typically a Laptop - where the source files and backup files reside on the same physical hard disk.

In such an environment the Secure Zone is a good utility because in the event that the system won't boot the user may be able to restore the system via the Startup Recovery Manager and the Secure Zone. This is a relatively easy procedure which even a non-technical person should be able to achieve.

For this situation I score Acronis an A+ for a clever solution to a difficult problem. Obviously the ASZ cannot save a situation where the disk has suffered mechanical or electronic component failure. That is why it is always preferrable to have a mutiple disk solution. But, for users who have only a single disk the ASZ provides an important additional level of safety.

However, in any situation, other than the one described above, I cannot think of any valid reason for incorporating the Secure Zone into a backup strategy.

.

 

Tab: Thanks for your thoughts, but... so how do you configure it so the secure zone doesn't get full / cleans itself?!

 

Re: Best practices for using the secure zone. It's full so how to avoid that / corre

I quote from Acronis....

 

I have my secure zone on a second hard drive. Automatic FIFO management and automatic imaging are a real blessing. It is scheduled to run when I am not using the computer I do not even have to be there.
I keep it simple and only use full images. The drive is big enough for 10 which is more than I am ever likely to need.
As my needs grow I will just replace the present drive with a bigger one.

Xpilot

 

tab... thanks for the info. yeah, I am in the 3rd category - I walked through the wizard and have a single full with incrementals going forward. taht's the default way / accepting acronis' defaults when walking though the wizard. but that is destined to fail when the incrementals take up too much space and there's that single full. How would you / acronis (although they don't seem to offer their thoughts) recommend configuring the system so there's 2 fulls available - 1 can be deleted if needed.

thanks!

 

Hello babaganoosh,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Please note that in case with Acronis Secure Zone you should provide enough disk space for Acronis Secure Zone to store both full backup archives and as much incremental/differential backup archive as needed. Since it is pretty hard to predict what data (in megabytes) changes prior to the incremental/differential backup archive creation I personally would count the size of the incremental/differential backup as 1/4 (quarter) of the full backup size.

Since you use Acronis True Image 10.0 Home I may offer you to use another feature of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home - backup locations, which also provide automatic backup archives management. I would recommend that you have a look at this previous thread to find more information about backup locations. Also chapter 3.5 "Acronis backup locations" and chapter 7. "Backup location management" of the Acronis True Image 10.0 Home User's Guide provide the detailed instructions on how to use backup locations.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

Thanks for the reply, but I was asking:

How would you / acronis (although they don't seem to offer their thoughts) recommend configuring the system so there's 2 fulls available - 1 can be deleted if needed

you make a point to say that I need to make sure there's room for the 2 full backups. so how do I create 2? I walked through the wizard once and chose the recommended option - make incremental if a full exists, I think it is.... so how does it make a 2nd full to be able to delete 1. Not where to store them but how to create them. Hope the next reply will be quicker!