JB said:
I have an external 250 gb drive that I am using for backup purposes.
When I look at the size of my C drive using properties, it indicates a
size of 49 gb. However, when I back up the computer, it is using
almost 2 and 1/2 times that amount. I am doing a "complete" back up
of everything on the drive. Help me understand this please!
To understand this, more details are needed.
How are you backing this up? Is this a straight copy, or are you using some
backup program, and if so what?
With a number of backup programs, a complete backup is of very limited
value, if can't give you or isn't set to allow you to create a restorable
image of the drive. Just restoring copies of the files to a new drive will
NOT make it bootable.
If the software leaves you having to reinstall Windows and your apps
anyway, you might as well be selective and just back up the meaningful data,
and exclude the stuff that should be temporary (temp folders and browser
caches) or fixed, like the Windows and program files. And you don't ever
need to back up the swap file or hibernation file located in the root.
Those two will be recreated as needed - there's usually over a gigabyte
between those two.
It's not a bad idea to use a tool like ccleaner (
www.ccleaner.com) to get
rid of the temp stuff before doing the backup. It will reduce both the
time and space needed.
Many imaging and backup programs will take a base image and then make
incremental backups. This is much faster and uses less space.
You should keep in mind that hard drives do fail and do corrupt, and that if
you have only one drive as backup, you don't really have a lot of security.
It can be a safer idea to make an image DVD, or set of image DVDs, and then
use the backup to create regular backups to multiple disks. Many places
use five CDs or DVDs, and swap them in the morning, the backup having run at
night. Periodically, test the archives - restore some files from them.
HTH
-pk
