Acronis question

[Mickey Mouse]

I'm slowly going through the pdf manual of Acronis9. I purchased it when it
was released but never got around to using it.
I'd like some thoughts about using Acronis 9 when the pc has only one
physical drive.
I know it would be preferable but is it necessary to have a second harddrive
installed for Acronis?

What's the overview when a system only has one drive?

While I'm digesting the manual, I'd appreciate some advice, or things to
look out for or steer clear of, maybe a tip or two.

Mickey

 

[David B.]

Acronis and most any other backup software is completely pointless without a
second hard drive to back up to, there is no use attempting to back up your
data to the same drive the original data is on. Unless you have a network
drive to back up to or want to swap a ton of DVD's you need a second drive,
preferable external.

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

If you only have one drive, and backup that drive to itself, what are you
going to do if the disk fails?

I and many others simply have an external USB drive for backups.

: I'm slowly going through the pdf manual of Acronis9. I purchased it when
it
: was released but never got around to using it.
: I'd like some thoughts about using Acronis 9 when the pc has only one
: physical drive.
: I know it would be preferable but is it necessary to have a second
harddrive
: installed for Acronis?
:
: What's the overview when a system only has one drive?
:
: While I'm digesting the manual, I'd appreciate some advice, or things to
: look out for or steer clear of, maybe a tip or two.
:
: Mickey
:
:
:
:
:

 

[Daave]

I'm slowly going through the pdf manual of Acronis9. I purchased it
when it was released but never got around to using it.
I'd like some thoughts about using Acronis 9 when the pc has only one
physical drive.
I know it would be preferable but is it necessary to have a second
harddrive installed for Acronis?

What's the overview when a system only has one drive?

While I'm digesting the manual, I'd appreciate some advice, or things
to look out for or steer clear of, maybe a tip or two.

The best advice anyone can offer you is to purchase an external hard
drive; they are certainly affordable now. Although better than not
backing up at all, it is not wise to store an image archive on the same
hard drive for obvious reasons. Until you purchase an external hard
drive (this is STRONGLY recommended!), what you can do is once you save
the image archive, copy it immediately to a DVD (or several DVDs,
depending on the size).

The second best advice would be for you to make regular incremental
images should you ever want an easy and quick way to restore your PC to
the last time it was stable. The advantage of restoring the most recent
image is it will contain all your data and programs, updates, settings,
drivers, etc. And once again, having an external hard drive would be
indispensable in this case. If your most recent image is stored on the
same hard drive, it may prove to be absolutley useless if that hard
drive physically dies. The reason you would want to install the image on
an external drive is that the odds of *both* drives crapping out at the
same time are quite high!

Finally, you need to validate your image immediately after you create
it.

For advanced users, create a Bart PE rescue CD with the Acronis plugin,
which would make the restoration process quicker than if you were to
boot off the Linux-based Acronis boot CD.

 

[Twayne]

I'm slowly going through the pdf manual of

Acronis9. I
purchased it when it was released but never got
around to
using it. I'd like some thoughts about using
Acronis 9 when the pc
has only one physical drive.
I know it would be preferable but is it
necessary to have
a second harddrive installed for Acronis?

What's the overview when a system only has one
drive?

While I'm digesting the manual, I'd appreciate
some
advice, or things to look out for or steer clear
of,
maybe a tip or two.
Mickey

Well ... with only one physical hard drive, you do
have a bit of a problem. The only "safe" way to
store your backups in this case will be on DVDs,
which is one of the better storage methods anyway,
but more trouble to do every time you do a backup.
Having the backup live on the same hard disk
would allow you to restore a file or a directory
here & there, or maybe a virus-botched OS, but you
couldn't do a full restore very reliably.
In addition, having the backup on the same hard
drive as the data sets you up to lose all of it if
the drive goes south, is virus/trojan/worm damaged
in any serious way, hit by surges & spikes and who
knows what else? Point is, anything that takes
that disk out on you also takes away your backup,
making it useless for a catastrophic recovery.
The most reasonable situation is to have an
external disk drive, separate from the computer,
to store daily incremental backups and a full
backup periodically. Once a month or whatever
your schedule mandates, you put a current full
backup to DVDs and store those away in case you
ever have a catastrophic failure of the external
drive (or the computer for that matter). With
DVDs, if you can get a computer to boot, you can
restore everything on your computer from them.
The general "rule" is to have two backups at
all times. There is one last step which says 3,
meaning to keep a set of DVDs off the premises, in
case of fire, theft, whatever. That's harder for
most people to accomplish, but many find ways to
do so whether it's a safe deposit box or just
their own firesafe, which gives at least some
preotection against fire. It all depends on how
far you want to go.
External DVD drives are very cheap these days -
I would seriously recommend one unless you don't
mind creating DVDs every time you back up. DVDs
are mch more time consuming to do, but worth the
effort the first time you need them. And, they're
pretty much permanent storage too.

HTH

Twayne

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

acronis is a company
that makes a variety
of software.

based on your post,
you purchases a pdf
manual and have issues
with it.
--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces

"share the nirvana" - dbZen

 

[Bill Sharpe]

Acronis and most any other backup software is completely pointless
without a second hard drive to back up to, there is no use attempting to
back up your data to the same drive the original data is on. Unless you
have a network drive to back up to or want to swap a ton of DVD's you
need a second drive, preferable external.

An Acronis image backup compresses files substantially. Depending on the
total size and type of your files you won't need a "ton of DVD's." I got
by with three.

Later, though, I did purchase an external HD, primarily for backup.
That's a much simpler operation. External HD's, as another poster has
indicated, are very affordable at the moment. I paid $80 for a 500gb
Seagate HD at Fry's in December.

Bill

 

[David B.]

"acronis is a company that makes a variety of software" Correct, nice to see
the meds are helping, how is it relevant to the OP?
"based on your post, you purchases a pdf manual and have issues with it"
Maybe the meds aren't helping after all.

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

well, in order to determine
if you are smarta** or a
dumba**,

tell us which one is the
acronis 9 software the
o.p. bought a while back:

http://www.acronis.com/smb/


--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces

"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[David B.]

It doesn't matter what the OP bought, what does matter is how you came to
the conclusion that the OP was having a problem with a pdf file when
everyone else was able to figure out what they were asking?

 

[Unknown]

Soooooo, maybe five!

That would work ONLY for a very basic installation with few programs.
Vista takes up that much space alone.

Richie Hardwick

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

the point is not how
I came across.

the point is that I use
acronis and others
do to.

but if you can tell any
of us who use acronis
which software it is,
then you are some kind
of genius.

so which software is
it that you are assuming
the o.p is speaking of ?



--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces

"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

many of us have
acronis.

I have version 10.

can you tell me what
I use it for?

--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces

"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I'm slowly going through the pdf manual of Acronis9. I purchased it when
it was released but never got around to using it.
I'd like some thoughts about using Acronis 9 when the pc has only one
physical drive.
I know it would be preferable but is it necessary to have a second
harddrive installed for Acronis?

What's the overview when a system only has one drive?

While I'm digesting the manual, I'd appreciate some advice, or things to
look out for or steer clear of, maybe a tip or two.

Mickey

It depends on what you're using it for.

If you're imaging the entire hard disk - yes, another hard disk, not
internal, is a better idea. The reason for "not internal" is that you can
remove that external hard disk and store it safely elsewhere; if your PC is
stolen or burnt, your image is gone too.

If you are backing up portions of data, such as mail, documents and
pictures, you'll generally be fine with a DVD/RW drive.

Don't rely on a single set of backups, verify that the backups work, and
keep a reasonably recent copy offsite.

HTH
-pk

 

[David B.]

I'd guess you beat yourself about the head with it.

 

[Mickey Mouse]

One thing about living on the other side of the world is you wake up
in the morning to all these replies.
And to all the above posters;

The overwhelming theme of all these replies is the failure of the backup
drive (same drive).

Frankly, I knew the answer before I posed the question. I was looking for
confirmation.

Ok, the censensus is that a second (destination drive) is warranted.
I agree, if the destination drive is the same as the originating drive then
a problem
occurs if that drive mechanically fails. Having said that I must ask, what's
the percentage
of corrupted harddrives as opposed to failed harddrives? I've come across
many systems
that were corrupted for one reason or other, but only a couple with
mechanical failure.

For those paraniod about the drive failure, I'm afraid the odds don't stack
up in your favor.

This paranioa is like a scuba taking along a spare pressure guage in case
the one on the tank fails.
Sure, the guage might fail, but more likely he'll run out of air first and
be able to access his
reserve air on the same tank.

Don't me wrong, it's a much better idea to have a dedicated backup drive. I
do believe though
that you're more likely to have a corrupt drive than a failed one. Of
course, when one has the
backup on the same drive, Murphy's law comes into play.

In respect to the manual I'm digesting, I'm refering to the PDF on the
Acronis 9.0 disk I bought. I didn't
buy the manual/guide seperately. I don't have issues with it, yet.

Another reason I posed the question is that it's been my experiance most,
and I mean most users only
have one drive be it multi-partitioned or all just one partition. I know
people with say a 500gb
harddrive all partitioned as C:. Here they keep the system, installed
applications, and storage folders.
That is a real concern, especially now that Terabyte drives are becomming
popular. Can you imagine,
a novice with a terabyte drive who installs anything and stores everything
on the one terabyte C:drive.
What a laugh (and a tech's dream machine).

Another poster suggested making three backups and keeping one in a firesafe,
safe deposit box or
offsite in case of fire or theft. Interesting suggestion, but you neglected
to mention earthquake or
nuclear attack. In that case he'll need to put his third backup in the safe
deposit box, put the safe
deposit box into the firesafe, take the firesafe offsite and bury it in
someones backyard and then hope
we're not invaded by Martians. (so hard to type when laughing!)
Oh, chicken little,.... the sky is NOT falling!

Sorry for taking the 'mickey' out of you Twayne.


Mickey

 

[Twayne]

"It" doesn't refer to the manual, you fool...
"it" is the
program.

The only fool I see here is you; calling others
fools. Fool. You're not even trying to help the
OP and only want to be disruptive. Too bad you
had nothing useful to say, and said it.

 

[Twayne]

well, in order to determine
if you are smarta** or a
dumba**,

tell us which one is the
acronis 9 software the
o.p. bought a while back:

http://www.acronis.com/smb/

Do you think old versions are kept available on
the
vendor site? What planet do you live on!?
You're an
idiot.

I have full (purchased) copies of Acronis 8, 9,
10, 11
and 2009 archived on my drive along with all
versions of
the manual.

Richie Hardwick[/QUOTE]

Ohh, goodie for you! I don't know what planet
they are on, but I could cite you right now two
applications where they keep the old versions
available. In fact, it's common place with open
source applications.
I'd say the only idiot here is the blatherskite
(that means you).

 

[Twayne]

many of us have

acronis.

I have version 10.

can you tell me what
I use it for?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Richie Hardwick"
in message

Ghost14 on this machine, BootItNG on the dual Xeon
behind me. WinZip on my laptop.

 

[Twayne]

An Acronis image backup compresses files
substantially.
Depending on the total size and type of your
files you
won't need a "ton of DVD's." I got by with
three.

Later, though, I did purchase an external HD,
primarily
for backup. That's a much simpler operation.
External
HD's, as another poster has indicated, are very
affordable at the moment. I paid $80 for a 500gb
Seagate
HD at Fry's in December.
Bill

Yeah, I just paid $137 for a terabyte business
model (vs home user). Prices are really dropping.