Unconfused me Please!!

Please forgive me for my ignorance.. I’ve just installed Acronis True Image 9.0 and the more I read the instruction manual, the more confused I get! I have 2 sets of 250GB HDD which is partitioned as C,D,E F,G,H. C is my primarily drive and F is my backup to C. Ok here’s the deal.

I’ve initially done a full backup and now have a 5GB .tib file in my F drive. Next I’ve also proceeded to create a 15GB partitioned for the Acronis Secure Zone which is also in my F drive.

Now my question:

What’s the difference between the Full Backup and the Acronis Secure Zone? Am I correct in saying that the full backup file should be sitting in the Secure Zone which I’ve created? Right now I am able to view the .tib file and obviously not the Secure Zone (So I do not know if there are any files in there)! Am I doing this all wrong? Should I be creating the Secure Zone and then perform the Full Backup instead?!

Thanks!

 

Your very last sentence is correct!

The first full backup that you did is a standard type, which for example you might use if you imaged your file to an external drive or indeed your second hard drive.

I don't use the SZ, but it is hidden for obvious reasons. The SZ should show up in TI as a normal option to back your image files up to - so you should also see your other partitions and hardrive in the list as well as any external drives that may be connected at the time - excluding USB stick drives.

Colin

 

Creating a secure zone on your backup drive is not mandatory. The full backup which you have will not be automatically sent to the secure zone. You have to specify the destiation of your images as part of the creation or scheduling process.
To see what is in the secure zone, which for now is empty, you should open TI in windows, locate the image .tib file which will show the time and date of creation and then if you want you could mount it to explore etc.
There are pluses and minuses to using a secure zone on a slave drive. As new .tib files are added and the zone becomes full the oldest image is automatically deleted (FIFO) I see this as a plus but YMMV. At present if you validate an image going to the secure zone all the images already there will also be validated. To me a minus.
FWIW I actually use a secure zone on a slave drive and the advantage of being able to schedule automatic backups with automatic rollover does it for me.

Xpilot

 

Hello david7766,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that Acronis Secure Zone is a special hidden protected partition on the hard disk drive. Since this partition is inaccessible by the operating system and applications other than Acronis True Image, you can be sure that the disk images stored there are secure and cannot be altered.

Please note that the farther you store the image archive from the original data, the safer it will be in case of data damage. For example, saving the archive to another hard disk will protect your data if your primary disk is damaged. Data saved to a network disk or removable media will survive even if all your local hard disks are down. Please note that Acronis Secure Zone was designed for those users who does not have a dedicated backup storage. If you have external hard drive you can store images created with Acronis True Image 9.0 Home there.

I would also recommend you to have a look at this thread to know more about Acronis Secure Zone.

Thank you.
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Aleksandr Isakov