Setting up a standalone computer with Acronis 9 Home

I have not found the help files that came with Acronis very helpful and so am a bit bemused as to what is best practice.
In the past I kept a 10 disk rotating dvd image backup. One for each day then monthly and quarterly. I used Nero Backitup.
Having bought Acronis I wondering what is the best way forward with it.

So far I have set up a secure backup zone, backed up drive C: which is all programs and system. It has very little data on it, as that is in another drive. I have also set the daily diferential backup. I have also created an Acronis bootable rescue disk CD. I have activated the startup recovery manager.

I have to decide how to backup my data. I think it might be dangerous to use the diferential backup because it means that if there is an unknown corruption I will not be able to go back to something before the corruption begun. Is this correct?

For the moment I have gone back to Nero's backitup and set it up for daily backups to DVDs choosing the data files and key program files. That gives me a history of files for 3 months.


I think I am not using Acronis 9 Home to its best advantage, or am I doing it right? What are your thoughts on my approach?

Robin

 

Since you have another drive, using the SZ is not necessary and could in fact be a disadvantage if your C drive goes south. I would use that second drive to hold the backups.

And for backing up data why not simply use Windows Explorer to save the data to that other drive. If you want some compression just use the built-in winzip that comes with windows.

 

Since you have another drive, using the SZ is not necessary and could in fact be a disadvantage if your C drive goes south. I would use that second drive to hold the backups.

I used the secure zone so as to prevent viruses, etc finding the backup. As far as I can work out it is not possibel to have a SZ on the non primary drive, so I suppose the best of both worlds would be to keep the SZ on drive C and have another copy on the second drive. What do you think? One thing is not clear. If I start using the rescue diisk and/ or the startup recovery manager can it work if the data is on the second drive?

And for backing up data why not simply use Windows Explorer to save the data to that other drive. If you want some compression just use the built-in winzip that comes with windows.

The problem is the need for a history of data files so that I can go back to an early one. That is why I use dvd's.

Robin

 

Not so. I had mine on the second hd, a logical drive partition. Eventually I scrapped it as I could not see any value in it.

See if you can place the sz on your second hd.

As for viruses, I might be wrong in stating this, but most viruses affect C Drive where the OS resides (usually). In fact, many experts suggest to partition the main hd and place the data on the second half of the disk to avoid it getting infected with spyware.

Yes

You mentioned in your original post

The way I see it, the main purpose of an imaging program is to restore your OS and other programs currently in use, should a problem occur. This alleviates the problem of going through through the time consuming process of a clean install.

Since you have two hd, I would suggest that you partiton your first hd and keep your data in the second half. Use your second hd for backup and storing an image of your first disk. This, of course, is subject to the size of your primary hd.

Chutsman's advice
Since you have another drive, using the SZ is not necessary and could in fact be a disadvantage if your C drive goes south. I would use that second drive to hold the backups.

has a lot of merit and is worth considering.

 

Robbyn, your concern about viruses can be alleviated 99.99% by using a good antivirus program (not Norton) and keeping it updated. And usually a virus will most likely not attach itself to a TI backup file. Viruses usually go after executable files or .dll files. So I don't think your backup Image files will be the first to be affected. Invest in an external usb drive, keep your backups there and disconnect the drive when not needed to save or restore a backup image.

 

Thank you everyone for your replies.

I think the external HD is a good idea.

Robin