Ghost 9 Baseline or full independent?

[Louise]

I'm using Ghost 9 to backup to a usb hard drive. I'm not scheduling
backups, but I'm doing them whenever it's convenient.

I see two options and it isn't clear to me which would be preferable to
use: one is "baseline backup" and the other is "full independent
backup".

From what I could tell from the help files, both backup methods allow
for incremental backups. So what is the difference and which would be
preferred under which circumstances?

TIA

Louise

 

[Irwin]

Hi. The answer is on pages 44-46 of the Ghost 9 manual. The difference
is rather subtle, and even after reading it several times I am still
not sure I understand. Too long to write here, it is in the manual and
in the pdf on the disk.

Irwin

 

[Louise]

Hi. The answer is on pages 44-46 of the Ghost 9 manual. The difference
is rather subtle, and even after reading it several times I am still
not sure I understand. Too long to write here, it is in the manual and
in the pdf on the disk.

Irwin

Thanks - I downloaded the program and therefore, don't have a manual.
But once you mentioned there is a pdf, I went to the Symantec site and
was able to download it.

Now I'm on page 44 - 46 and it is completely unclear! But I do have a
manual.

Reading it 9+ times, I am under an impression that the baseline backup
will allow for incremental backups enabling one to restore to a chosen
point in time.

HOWEVER, I am also under an impression that a baseline backup prompts
Norton to monitor your machine all the time to keep track of changed
files. The manual says for baseline "incremental tracking is turned on
for the selected drive".

What seems completely incomprehensible is whether there is a way to do
incrementals without having "tracking".

If anyone understands this, please chime in.

In either case, thanks for sending me in the right direction.

Louise

 

[Rod Speed]

The answer is on pages 44-46 of the Ghost 9 manual.
The difference is rather subtle,
Nope.

and even after reading it several times I am still not sure I understand.

What the manual calls a full backup is the old style of
backup, just one full backup of the entire drive or partition,
with no possibility of doing an incremental backup later for
the stuff that has changed since that full backup was done.

What the manual calls base with incrementals is the first
step in doing incremental backups, the first full backup of
the drive or partition which allows incremental backups to
be done after that, basically because it then keeps track
of what sectors have got changed since the base was done,
so it knows what to put into the incremental backup done later.

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks - I downloaded the program and therefore, don't have a manual.
But once you mentioned there is a pdf, I went to the Symantec site and
was able to download it.

Now I'm on page 44 - 46 and it is completely unclear! But I do have a
manual.

Reading it 9+ times, I am under an impression that
the baseline backup will allow for incremental backups
Correct.

enabling one to restore to a chosen point in time.

Thats an independant issue that comes with incremental backups.

They also allow a much quicker backup once the base has been done.

HOWEVER, I am also under an impression that
a baseline backup prompts Norton to monitor your
machine all the time to keep track of changed files.

Sectors, actually, yes.

The manual says for baseline "incremental
tracking is turned on for the selected drive".

What seems completely incomprehensible is whether there
is a way to do incrementals without having "tracking".

Nope, there isnt.

 

[Peter]

Sectors, actually, yes.



Nope, there isnt.

I wonder how fast can you run disk defragmentation with "sector tracking"
on. Did anyone try that? Does disk defragmentation affect incremental backup
size a lot?

 

[Rod Speed]

I wonder how fast can you run disk defragmentation
with "sector tracking" on. Did anyone try that?

I dont bother to defrag, complete waste of time on most modern systems.

 

[Louise]

I wonder how fast can you run disk defragmentation with "sector tracking"
on. Did anyone try that? Does disk defragmentation affect incremental backup
size a lot?

I don't feel that defrag is the only issue, although I do defrag on a
regular basis and find that it does improve performance.

My greater concern is that all the processes available to "monitor" all
the possible complications of present day computing (virus, spam,
spyware, firewall, and now sector tracting) slow down the machine and
also leave it increasingly prone to untrackable conflicts. Suddenly,
something isn't working right and you just don't know whether it was the
last NAV live update, or the last firewall update, or maybe a conflict
between one of those and the spyware etc etc and so forth

Although it has its drawbacks, Dantz Retrospect does incremental backups
without changing the archive bit. I am presnetly running Dantz and will
take a full image with Ghost on another hard drive every week or two.
This should allow me to have "go back" options for about 3 - 4 weeks -
at least that's my plan

Louise

 

[Rod Speed]

I don't feel that defrag is the only issue, although I do defrag
on a regular basis and find that it does improve performance.

Bet you wouldnt be able to pick it in a proper double blind
trial without being allowed to use a fragmentation display.

My greater concern is that all the processes available to "monitor"
all the possible complications of present day computing (virus, spam,
spyware, firewall, and now sector tracting) slow down the machine

Dont get anything noticeable when I have it turned on.

and also leave it increasingly prone to untrackable conflicts. Suddenly,
something isn't working right and you just don't know whether it was the
last NAV live update, or the last firewall update, or maybe a conflict
between one of those and the spyware etc etc and so forth

Why should just TRACKING changes to sectors
since the last incremental backup do that ?

Surely that can only happen if you actually restore from the
incremental backups and that is very rare with most systems.