Acronis Back up

[Edward W. Thompson]

I use Acronis True Image v8.0, backing up to DVD disc's takes about 3 1/2
hours(depends on how much info you are backing up) and requires you to be
there to swap out disc's with a fresh one (the compression settings from
normal to high does very little),however backing up to an external hd
takes
only around 25 min and works great. My hd has 69 gigs of info on it and
using the "normal"
compression settings on true image I can get three backups on a 120 gigs
external hd.
restoring the image also requires no interface (feeding the disc's in the
correct order).

While it is your choice of course, using imaging software for 'backup' is a
waste of both time and HDD space. The most efficient system would be to
image the drives on which your programs and OS (WINXP) are installed and use
a backup program for periodic backup of data. Even more efficient is to use
ERUNT to backup the Registry, the most vulnerable part of your system to
damage, and use a backup program for data. Programs and OS can be
reinstalled from original disks in the event of a problem.

 

[Rock]

While it is your choice of course, using imaging software for 'backup' is
a waste of both time and HDD space. The most efficient system would be to
image the drives on which your programs and OS (WINXP) are installed and
use a backup program for periodic backup of data. Even more efficient is
to use ERUNT to backup the Registry, the most vulnerable part of your
system to damage, and use a backup program for data. Programs and OS can
be reinstalled from original disks in the event of a problem.

Depends on what you regard as efficient. In the case of imaging the
computer does all the work. If you have to reinstall the OS and all
programs you do all th work. Regular imaging saves you this, and since disk
storage is cheap these days why not. Ok backup changed and new data
between imaging, but regular imaging saves time in the long run.

 

[Smirnoff]

Acronis True Image v9.0
I intend to buy a USB external drive for back up purposes but at the
moment have only one DVD-RW disk (4.7GB).
My HD has used 21.3GB and I have 124GB of free space.
Image back up is new to me, so I thought I'd experiment prior to getting
my external disk (belt and braces).
Have tried to make sense of Help files but not sure of how much imaging
compresses/reduces file size.
Given that used space is 21.3GB, would I be able to fit a full HD image
back up on one DVD-RW?

Thanks to everyone who responded.

 

[MAP]

While it is your choice of course, using imaging software for
'backup' is a waste of both time and HDD space. The most efficient
system would be to image the drives on which your programs and OS
(WINXP) are installed and use a backup program for periodic backup of
data. Even more efficient is to use ERUNT to backup the Registry,
the most vulnerable part of your system to damage, and use a backup
program for data. Programs and OS can be reinstalled from original
disks in the event of a problem.

The $80 US I spent on the external HD has already paid for itself when a
problem required me to restore the image,and yes I also use Erunt as well.
Why on Earth would I want to reinstall the OS and all of my programs as well
as redoing all of the tweaks to my OS when all I need to do is to create an
image before I go to bed? But if you enjoy that kind of thing then have at
it!