True image 11 home backup suggestions

Hi
This is my first post here. I having a small problem in backing up.
here is my disk setup. Main hdd is 100GB. A new backup disk of 200GB. I want to use 100GB for backup from main disk and use the 100GB left as additional storage.

Now , if i clone , i cant use the additional 100GB space.
So i was trying full disk image backup, but that gives me errors saying that dynamic disks wont be able to restore from rescue media . Can someone help here ?

Also which could be the best backup methodology using the disks i have and i want to use additional space on backup disk.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

True Image does not support Dynamic disks ... you'll have to change it to Basic. There's actually no need to make two partitions on the 200. Just save your Images of the 100 to a folder on the 200. Keep the rest of your data in folders also so you'll always know what is in which folder.

 

Thanks for the quick reply.
Image backup to a folder of 100Gb seems a good idea. But i have one more question here. If my main disk crashes, will the image backup also restore the MBR or just the partitions and data ?

 

See the attached image:

 

Ok, i get this. So basically both cloning and imaging will restore entirely but cloning is more safer than imaging. Right ??

 

Actually Imaging is safer. Some users report that the Source drive becomes unusable after Cloning. I think this is more user error than the cause of the software, but the saying, better safe than sorry, applies. And you can fit more than one Image on an external drive if the size allows, but you can only do one Clone to a drive.

 

But in any event, you can't use ATI with dynamic drives.

 

But there can be chances of image corruption also. I am not experienced with this , It just came to my mind. But also the image as a whole is one protected unit.
Anyway ,In my situation , i feel imaging is the only solution.
So , i ll go with it. I plan to use sector by sector imaging and will then incrementally updating it monthly.

Ok, thanks for all the suggestions to all who have posted here. If anything important i missed , then tell me.

 

While I have not tried SbS Imaging, from what I've read here it is not advisable. I think this is something new in Ver 11 - I'm still using ver 9. Do the whole disk Image. Put the check mark against Disk 1. Those familiar with SbS will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I, also, have never used SbS imaging, but I do know that your backup file will be larger than necessary since SbS includes all sectors even if they contain no live data. The backup image file of a 100 GB drive with only 50 GB of data will be basically 50% wasted space.

 

Isnt sector by sector imaging better as the size of image will always be constant . This way the size that it occupies on larger backup disk will be constant also.
Any problems with sector by sector imaging ? One thing just came to my mind . Will incremental backup work properly with SbS images ?

 

Hello rodrigodiaz,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for delayed response.

Incremental backups should work properly with sector by sector images.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

I wouldn't bother with SbS unless doing anormal image failed.

RE size of partition when restoring, please refer to the user guide

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/docs/

You can restore ti disks/partitons of diff sizes. You can copy files form backup images to other locations. Yu shouldn't need to copy all those empty sectors. SbS approach is there basically for those rare instances when you happen to need a copy of all the sectors, even the empty ones.