How do you use archives?

Just wondering if I am not making full use of archives

At present I have several snapshots on my OS drive for instant recovery. In addition I have created several archives and feel more comfortable having these stored on a separate and/or external drive for emergencies.

I never actually had to use them, so they just give me that warm and fuzzy feeling that a backup should be possible. Are you guys also using archives for other purposes? I suppose you could limit the number of snapshots and keep more archives with varying configs for testing purposes. Anyone using a logical or convenient set-up for this.

 

Right, If you are totally stuck,everything hosed and nothing helps,then if as Peter do, your up and running in no time,guess 10 minutes.
its just a miracle,these app. in their own way are unbeatable,let alone if they team up.

 

I will give this some more thought and play with this. I can see the advantage of using archives more widely than just for emergency backup.
In the past I tested some software in my secondary and then either kept it or wiped it by copying from primary. Sometimes I am not really convinced one way or the other and might want to go back to the new program later. In this case I guess I could create a test archive running firewall A, a test archive running firewall B, a test archive running AV A etc.
Really keeping my primary untouched unless the new program is a clear winner.

Peter

- do you find any disadvantage in not having any "regular" secondary or consecutive snapshot? I assume if worst case scenario you could not boot up in your secondary snapshot, any other snapshots probably would not help either?

 

Hi Peter,

Just so I understand.

You are saying that you were using VISTA and then within VISTA restored an archive made of an XP installation and then were able to boot into a fully functional XP installation?

So, I could probably archive a VISTA snapshot, delete VISTA and install XP with FD-ISR and then later, should I want , restore the VISTA archive within an XP installation thus giving me a functional VISTA primary.

I guess it is analogous to putting an alternative OS on a blank snapshot.

 

FirstDefense (Genuine) is my "TOP" above all else bread and butter recovery restore solution, even trumping my images from favorite back up program. In spite of the "speed" difference i don't differentiate them anyways, FD-ISR's archives to me are the absolute Gold Standard for reliable fall back protection in the face of everything from file infector virus contamination to hard drive malfunction.

It's proven itself for me the most versatile and confidence enhanced backup system that i ever experienced.

Proper use of them is to always maintain copies of them to an alternate hard drive disk. They have not failed me once to rebuild/restore, completely intact their origin files = snapshots with 100% reliability.

 

Wow ! Easter, i have have the same gut feeling with FDISR, but then you sing the praises of every software your using. lol

 

Hi Huppi

You know what? That comment just made me realize something, i do sing a loud and mighty note over the security software that i use, and i keep on hand what i think are some of the best in the whole galaxy ever invented for security duty.

This forum and it's membership have a lot to with that and theres certainly no slouches here you know, you included

 

This is a silly question but am I right in assuming that if you update from an archive to a snapshot, you cannot update the active snapshot?

 

FD-ISR is IMO an EXTREMELY versatile and most of all dependable & reliable ISR programming creation.

The archives are often looked on as a secondary precaution in event of anything where your sanpshots might have been adversely affected for some reason or simply to return to zero point where your snapshot was when saved/updated as archived.

This single feature alone is done my efforts proud and is a proven reliable fallback measure that other ISR's still have yet to duplicate. The FD snapshot's archive serves as a 100% assured recovery to a safe and complete return because it backs up "ALL" files/settings etc. in their entirety.

No fluff here or pointers to some full baseline origin but a perfect mirror copy, and you get on an update/copy just that, the FULL mirror image/snapshot of the system it indexed and duplicated leaving nothing out save only .tmp files and such.

Even now when all the excitement of it seems to have run it's course and it's little mentioned, those users who still rely on it know they have so much better peace of mind if any snapshot for any reason presents any problem.

Long Live FD-ISR!!!

 

so:

Copy from any snapshot to any snapshot (except primary) or any archive, ie I can be in primary snapshot but do a copy from snapshot gaming to archive march.

and

copy from any archive to any archive or any archive to any snapshot except for primary.

 

You can do all the copy/update from the current in use snapshot to any archives and other installed snapshots[up to 10]

exception is that updating the current in use snapshot,you have to boot to another one.

 

I see the different situation for the active snapshot but find it a good feature that all other copy actions can take place no matter what snapshot you are in.

One hopefully final query: I am using Cobian for backup and noticed that the limit is 5gb per file. This means that I cannot backup any archives with Cobian. This is only relevant for the backup of the backup being done without F_IsR again copying anything. Is there any issue with just doing a manual copy / paste of archives from my backup drive to an external solution.

 

if this is the case,copying from the shell[explorer] would do just fine,no need for Cobian.