Backing up entire system partition : image or clone ?

[Guest]

I am operating a small home-office network, consisting of 2 almost identical
PC's, both having work environments (XP + umpteen applications) that are
identical at this moment, but are likely to drift apart in the future.
In addition, I have an external HDD of 400 GByte capacity, just for safety
(it connects to anyone of the PC's via Firewire and for the moment hosts only
data).
My goal is now to be protected against the failure of anyone of my 2
built-in HDD's : one of them has been running for 4 years...
I wish I could organize in such a way that -should one of these HDD's break
down- I could rapidly configure a replacement HDD by plugging it as slave
into the healthy computer and loading it with the needed complete system,
which I would obtain from a backup in the external unit.
So, my question is : should I backup my "C" partitions into the external
unit by using an "image" process (with which software ? I have Datakeeper),
which means having to do later a "restore" operation, or should I do a
cloning operation (I have Casper) and be ready for "cloning the clone" ?
And, last but not least, which type of ad-hoc partitions should I create in
my external unit for receiving the backups ?
Many thanks to those who will have the patience to read me and to give me
advice.

 

[Jim]

I am operating a small home-office network, consisting of 2 almost
identical
PC's, both having work environments (XP + umpteen applications) that are
identical at this moment, but are likely to drift apart in the future.
In addition, I have an external HDD of 400 GByte capacity, just for safety
(it connects to anyone of the PC's via Firewire and for the moment hosts
only
data).
My goal is now to be protected against the failure of anyone of my 2
built-in HDD's : one of them has been running for 4 years...
I wish I could organize in such a way that -should one of these HDD's
break
down- I could rapidly configure a replacement HDD by plugging it as slave
into the healthy computer and loading it with the needed complete system,
which I would obtain from a backup in the external unit.
So, my question is : should I backup my "C" partitions into the external
unit by using an "image" process (with which software ? I have
Datakeeper),
which means having to do later a "restore" operation, or should I do a
cloning operation (I have Casper) and be ready for "cloning the clone" ?
And, last but not least, which type of ad-hoc partitions should I create
in
my external unit for receiving the backups ?
Many thanks to those who will have the patience to read me and to give me
advice.

I usually associate "clone" with "make an identical disk". This is the
quickest way to replace
an entire disk. Quite a few programs can clone disks; the one that I use is
Acronis. It does
take a long time to clone one disk to another.

Another way to accomplish what I understand that you wish to do is to use a
backup program
to create a full backup file of the system partition. Such a file can be
placed almost anywhere
you wish. I do make a system backup, but the file resides on another disk.
My reason for not
using a partition on the system disk is that there can be no assurance that
such a partition can
be read on a disk with another partition failure.

Acronis contains a method for creating a CD which can recover Acronis backup
files. In addition,
Acronis (and perhaps others) provides a plugin for BartPE.

What I would do, and you may not be willing to do such, is to buy
replacement disks for each computer.
I would then clone the system disk for a given computer onto its replacement
disk.

Jim

 

[Guest]

I have Partition Magic. I have looked into investing in a cloning program
such as Acronis but would like to make use of a back up drive. (I would
rather pay £££ for a spare drive than another copying program.) Would you
use PM to create a copy on the backup drive to store in case of any future
problems. (Either viral infection, hardware failure or software failure)?

 

[Guest]

I usually associate "clone" with "make an identical disk". This is the
quickest way to replace
an entire disk. Quite a few programs can clone disks; the one that I use is
Acronis. It does
take a long time to clone one disk to another.

Another way to accomplish what I understand that you wish to do is to use a
backup program
to create a full backup file of the system partition. Such a file can be
placed almost anywhere
you wish. I do make a system backup, but the file resides on another disk.
My reason for not
using a partition on the system disk is that there can be no assurance that
such a partition can
be read on a disk with another partition failure.

Acronis contains a method for creating a CD which can recover Acronis backup
files. In addition,
Acronis (and perhaps others) provides a plugin for BartPE.

What I would do, and you may not be willing to do such, is to buy
replacement disks for each computer.
I would then clone the system disk for a given computer onto its replacement
disk.

Jim

Thanks, Jim.
I understand your explanations and I would say that your answer to my
questions (or my "dilemma") is "you can do it both ways, image or clone" ; am
I right ?
However I would like to pick your brains a little more :
- is an "image" of a complete system (OS plus...) reliable once it has been
"restored" into a new HDD ? I am afraid that the image+restore process might
introduce some errors that would defeat my purpose (not having to populate
the system partition of a replacement HDD with Windows XP and Office and apps
and recreate all personalized settings etc).
- if I clone my existing system into the external unit, cloning means making
an exact copy, bit for bit ; therefore, it seems to me that -when it becomes
necessary- I could clone from the clone into my replacement disk. Is this
baby talk or can it work that way ? If it is workable, do I have to place the
interim clone into a partition of the external HDD that would be configured
like a system partition (i.e. "primary") or can it be hosted by an ordinary
"logical" partition ?

Best greetings,

Claude

 

[Guest]

I have Partition Magic. I have looked into investing in a cloning program
such as Acronis but would like to make use of a back up drive. (I would
rather pay £££ for a spare drive than another copying program.) Would you
use PM to create a copy on the backup drive to store in case of any future
problems. (Either viral infection, hardware failure or software failure)?

LeeG :
Your problem is similar to mine and your suggestion not to spend
EuroEuroEuro on a specific software is valid !
I had not noticed so far that PartitionMagic gives the possibility to make
"clones" (I have PM version 8.0), and when needing to clone my system a short
while ago (to configure PC#2 identically to PC#1) I had used Casper ; there
is a trial version which I found to be sufficient for one-time usage, and it
is easy to understand and quick.
Concerning backing-up via the "image + restore" technique, I have written
something potentially wrong in my initial post : I am not sure at all that
DataKeeper is the right choice for system folders and files. For this the
ad-hoc softwares are things like TrueImage or DriveImage ; I have tried to
use them in the past, but found them very very tricky. You may be more expert
than me...

Greetings,

Claude

 

[Jim]

Thanks, Jim.
I understand your explanations and I would say that your answer to my
questions (or my "dilemma") is "you can do it both ways, image or clone" ;
am
I right ? Yes.
However I would like to pick your brains a little more :
- is an "image" of a complete system (OS plus...) reliable once it has
been
"restored" into a new HDD ? I am afraid that the image+restore process
might
introduce some errors that would defeat my purpose (not having to populate
the system partition of a replacement HDD with Windows XP and Office and
apps
and recreate all personalized settings etc).

Image + restore "should" work, but I would make a trial run. I haven't done
that yet
because I need to buy some more disks. I would advise buying a product
which has
a verify option. That is, as it inserts a file into the backup file, it
verifies that the
copy operation completed successfully. I don't know if Acronis does that,
and
I need to determine it for my system.

- if I clone my existing system into the external unit, cloning means
making
an exact copy, bit for bit ; therefore, it seems to me that -when it
becomes
necessary- I could clone from the clone into my replacement disk. Is this
baby talk or can it work that way ? If it is workable, do I have to place
the
interim clone into a partition of the external HDD that would be
configured
like a system partition (i.e. "primary") or can it be hosted by an
ordinary
"logical" partition ?

No, clone of a disk is a bit by bit copy of everything on the disk.
Acronis does
not have the ability to clone a disk to a partition elsewhere. It might get
all mixed up
anyway because all disks have at least two partitions; OEM systems have at
least three.
I would not trust a clone of a disk to a partition on another disk; you may
feel differently.

You could do as you suggest clone from one removable disk to another.
Acronis presents you
with a list of disks which are connected to the computer. You then
determine which disk goes where.
I suspect Ghost does that also, but as I am not a fan of Symantec, I will
never know.

In addition, in the case of a system disk, you could boot the disk to
determine if the clone succeeded or not.
A way is to remove the cloned disk from its enclosure and install it into
your system box.
If it boots OK, then all is well. If it doesn't, then it is time to contact
the vendor.

Jim

 

[DL]

Acronis can usually be purchased at a favourable price, eg Amazon

I have used Acronis on numerous occations to clone to another HD (larger) it
has allways (touch wood) proceeded painlessly

 

[DL]

In edition;
Over many years I have found the most likely cause of failure (excluding
virus/malaware) is HD followed by pwr supply / motherboard.
Even in a small home business enviroment you need to consider how important
your data is, and how much downtime you can stand whilst you recover.
Personnally I keep three seperate data backups one of which is offsite,
mirrored drives using a dedicated raid card with hotswap, and incremental
clone of the system, verified after each process.
I can connect to my important data on three seperate sys, if required.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I am operating a small home-office network, consisting of 2 almost identical
PC's, both having work environments (XP + umpteen applications) that are
identical at this moment, but are likely to drift apart in the future.
In addition, I have an external HDD of 400 GByte capacity, just for safety
(it connects to anyone of the PC's via Firewire and for the moment hosts only
data).
My goal is now to be protected against the failure of anyone of my 2
built-in HDD's : one of them has been running for 4 years...
I wish I could organize in such a way that -should one of these HDD's break
down- I could rapidly configure a replacement HDD by plugging it as slave
into the healthy computer and loading it with the needed complete system,
which I would obtain from a backup in the external unit.
So, my question is : should I backup my "C" partitions into the external
unit by using an "image" process (with which software ? I have Datakeeper),
which means having to do later a "restore" operation, or should I do a
cloning operation (I have Casper) and be ready for "cloning the clone" ?
And, last but not least, which type of ad-hoc partitions should I create in
my external unit for receiving the backups ?

Hello, Claude. Still at it, huh?

Since your external hard drive is fed by Firewire, you will not be able
to use a clone kept there to boot from - which is a little less convenient
than a clone (to make AND to use). The most convenient clone is one
which can be booted. I shall assume that the 2 PCs are desktop models,
not laptops, and that there is a spare expansion bay. If that is so, you
can put a backup drive in a removable tray and put an fresh clone on it
periodically. One maker of such "mobile racks" is Kingwin, which makes
them for both PATA and SATA hard drives:
http://www.kingwin.com/mobileracks.asp . If the main HD fails, just shut
down the system, turn on the power switch for the mobile rack, and
restart, and go into the BIOS and set the HD in the mobile rack at the
head of the Hard Drive Boot Order (i.e. highest priority), so that the
BIOS will pass control to the MBR in the mobile rack). The boot
process will proceed exactly as if the HD in the mobile rack were the
HD of which it is a clone.

As for software, Casper and Ghost can make a clone of single partitions
and can put that clone among other partitions on the destination HD.
So if your OS is in one of several partitions on the source HD, the cloning
utility will be able to make a clone of just that partition (and its boot
files)
and not of the entire HD. This is most convenient if you keep multiple
clones (made at different times) on the archive HD as I do. Just be sure
to make entry that points to it in the boot.ini file in the active Primary
partition.

If your motherboard (or PCI controller card) has a SATA controller,
you can use and eSATA cable to connect to an external eSATA
enclosure that houses a SATA HD, and you will be able to boot from
that drive. Kingwin makes those enclosures, too:
http://www.kingwin.com/product_pages/jt35ebk.asp
Or maybe you want to use more than one external SATA HD:
http://www.kingwin.com/product_pages/kf3000-bk.asp

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Since your external hard drive is fed by Firewire, you will not be able
to use a clone kept there to boot from - which is a little less convenient
than a clone (to make AND to use). The most convenient clone is one
which can be booted.

That should have been:
" - which is a little less convenient than a clone that resides on a HD
that has a PATA or SATA controller (to make AND to use)."

The point was that a bootable clone, i.e. one that does not require
the "restore" step of an image file, can be used even if it is on the
only remaining HD that works. That is, it not only contains the
backup, it *is* the backup.

*TimDaniels*