Backup-Strategy with TI Home 2009

Hello everyone,

I have a question: I have TI home 2009. I have a single desktop computer, an external hard disk, 2 internal hard disks. One of them internal is the system partition with contains all my data. I´ve done one click protection. Now I have a backup task: system backup is performed every week incremental on the external disk. I´ve made an acronis secure zone with the recovery manager on my second internal HDD. TI says, that I am well protected (all is green). What, if my external HDD fails? Can you give me a better strategy? I thought also about sending my data to an online HDD (adrive.com)

Thx in advance for answering

Marcus

 

I have two internal HD's plus one external HD. I have one HD which is a single volume on which my OS, programs and data reside. I have the slave drive partitioned - 300 gig I use for backups with the other 200 gig reserved for Ubuntu. I initially backup to my slave drive then when that is done I just simply drag and drop the backup onto a file called backups on my external HD. What are the chances of two extra drives failing at the same time - remote to non existent maybe?

 

You have to decide what balance of cost, convenience and security is right for you. There is no right or wrong answer. Each additional location from whichyou can restore terridically increases the odds that you we be able to restore when the hammer comes down.

Some questions you might want to ask.

How will you get on line to do a restore if your sys disk isn't working?
Is the incremental increase in security worth the extra costs?
When the time comes, will I remember what backups are where?
If I plan to keep backups in several places, will I acutally keep up the routine?
What happens if my house/room burns down; am I willing to lose all the data and start over?

 

Thank you shieber for you answer.

I booted my computer today and had a "fresh" version of windows. All my pictures (of my kids documents and so on had gone) and i dont know why. I had only one image on my external HDD to restore. THX god it functioned. What if this image where corrupt? You can perform an image, validate it and then you have a bad sector on your HDD? I read that performing an image backup and validating it is as long ok as you do not move this to another place because this could cause writing on a bad sector. I want a secure strategy like Grandfather-father-son backups (on two different places or three because of the fotos) to perform with TI Home 2009. Maybe images weekly and data backups daily incremental or differetial? Without using much disk space. Can You give me a strategy?

 

I would keep all you personal data on the second internal hard drive, then you can make a image with TI of just your system disk with Windows and the installed programs. The data drive I would back up to the external with a program such as Microsoft's SyncToy or something similar. If your data comprises of a large number of picture or music files then there is little point in using TI as the files are already compressed.

 

Another vote for backing up personal data files in their native format. I use SyncBackSE. Your personal data files are the ones that need the most protection, you can always reinstall Windows and applications if necessary; the personal files are available nowhere else at any cost.

FWIW, I always keep such files on a separate partition/device from the OS/Apps partition. This way you can quickly backup and restore images of the OS/Apps partition or blow it away at any time without worrying about losing your data files.