Best Way To Back Up?

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have 2 Hard Drives set up as master and slave.
I am using the second hard drive (slave) as my backup storage to the first
drive (master)--both 80 Gb drives

My question is:

Using Windows 2000, which is the best way to back up to a second hard drive?
(Don't want to use Win2000 backup tool)

Norton Ghost
Drive Image 7

or . . .

Personal Go Back
Or simply use a tape drive


I haven't had any experience with any of software mentioned above, nor have
I really had any experience on backing up.
My primary goal here is to capture the whole drive (master) so I can restore
it whenver something bad happens.

But software reviews of the application tools mentioned above are into the
extreme--some very bad and some very good.
And because of it, I am a bit hesistant of which one to use--if at all!

But I'm quiet sure some people here can help me out with an advice.
Thank you very much!

I have used both DriveImage and Acronis TrueImage successfully.
The important thing is to test the image file after creating it. This
requires another disk or at the very least a vacant partition of
suitable size.

 

[Steve Parry [MVP]]

In

I have 2 Hard Drives set up as master and slave.
I am using the second hard drive (slave) as my backup storage to the
first drive (master)--both 80 Gb drives

My question is:

Using Windows 2000, which is the best way to back up to a second hard
drive? (Don't want to use Win2000 backup tool)

Norton Ghost
Drive Image 7

or . . .

Personal Go Back
Or simply use a tape drive


I haven't had any experience with any of software mentioned above,
nor have I really had any experience on backing up.
My primary goal here is to capture the whole drive (master) so I can
restore it whenver something bad happens.

But software reviews of the application tools mentioned above are
into the extreme--some very bad and some very good.
And because of it, I am a bit hesistant of which one to use--if at
all!

But I'm quiet sure some people here can help me out with an advice.
Thank you very much!

Fix your date/area setting Gerard, you're showing the 29th when its the
28th

 

[Dan DeStefano]

you want to create disaster-recovery images? if so, then i recommend
symantec ghost. it is steadily becoming the defacto standard for disk
imaging. as far as backup is concerned, i would strongly recommend backing
your server up to some kind of removable storage device - preferably to
tape. however, i have had a lot of success backing up to external usb hard
drives. you do want to make sure that you have some kind of offsite backup
as well - i recommend at least a weekly offsite backup.
also, if both drives are equal size, why not create a raid 1 mirror? i would
recommend against using windows' software raid in favor of some kind of
hardware raid solution. several companies like adaptec, silicon image and
promise, to name a few, make pci raid controllers. the advantage of hardware
raid is it places a lot less overhead on your systsem - some raid adapters
have their own processors. also, with software raid, there are a lot of
pesky limitations and restoring a system is more cumbersome.
using raid 1, the first drive will be mirrored onto the second drive, so if
the first drive fails, with hardware raid, upon reboot it will automatically
failover to the second drive and will sound an alarm alerting you that the
disk has failed.
in any event, raid is no substitute for regular backups.

Dan

 

[Gerard Sanchez]

I have 2 Hard Drives set up as master and slave.
I am using the second hard drive (slave) as my backup storage to the first
drive (master)--both 80 Gb drives

My question is:

Using Windows 2000, which is the best way to back up to a second hard drive?
(Don't want to use Win2000 backup tool)

Norton Ghost
Drive Image 7

or . . .

Personal Go Back
Or simply use a tape drive


I haven't had any experience with any of software mentioned above, nor have
I really had any experience on backing up.
My primary goal here is to capture the whole drive (master) so I can restore
it whenver something bad happens.

But software reviews of the application tools mentioned above are into the
extreme--some very bad and some very good.
And because of it, I am a bit hesistant of which one to use--if at all!

But I'm quiet sure some people here can help me out with an advice.
Thank you very much!

 

[nesredep egrob]

In

Now what is wrong with Win2000 backup,used it for years, never had any
trouble as I make sure that I get the System State and/or the system
Folder information.
I once tried Winbackup to DVD - there was no facility for backing up
the System state and it was therefore useless. Had to use the big
hammer to get my money back.
I can format and restore my C: drive in 1-2 hours and D: drive in 30
minutes.

For your information, my stats are:
Win 2000, Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz
1 Gb memory,ADSL
200+200 GB disks partitioned C:E;as 7.81,80.84.97.65
F: G: as 88.65,97.66 for data
Borge Pedersen
Perth, Australia
mailto:[email protected]
remove SPAM and underlines for email

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Now what is wrong with Win2000 backup,used it for years, never had any
trouble as I make sure that I get the System State and/or the system
Folder information.
I once tried Winbackup to DVD - there was no facility for backing up
the System state and it was therefore useless. Had to use the big
hammer to get my money back.
I can format and restore my C: drive in 1-2 hours and D: drive in 30
minutes.

For your information, my stats are:
Win 2000, Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz
1 Gb memory,ADSL
200+200 GB disks partitioned C:E;as 7.81,80.84.97.65
F: G: as 88.65,97.66 for data
Borge Pedersen
Perth, Australia
mailto:[email protected]
remove SPAM and underlines for email

There is an obvious drawback to ntbackup: If your system gets
hosed then you have to install an auxiliary copy of Win2000 in
order to run ntbackup.exe for the restoration effort. This is
tedious and time-consuming, and can be a problem on disks
that are getting full. Imaging products step very neatly around
this problem.

 

[nesredep egrob]

There is an obvious drawback to ntbackup: If your system gets
hosed then you have to install an auxiliary copy of Win2000 in
order to run ntbackup.exe for the restoration effort. This is
tedious and time-consuming, and can be a problem on disks
that are getting full. Imaging products step very neatly around
this problem.

OK, thanks I shall give it a go. Naturally Winbackup knocked me off
the idea. Which one do you recommend. I already have Roxio on the
machine and can easily write a RW DVD. I am on a buying expedition
next month when the money man comes, so there is plenty of time to
answer.

If you really are in trouble, do have a look at this
http://www.pchell.com/index.shtml

B.Pedersen Latitude -31,48.21 Longitude115,47.40 Time=GMT+8.00
If you are curious look here http://www.mapquest.com/maps/latlong.adp

 

[Gerard Sanchez]

It came down to three software: Norton Ghost and Drive Image 7 and Acronis.
At the end I chose Drive Image 7 perhaps more so because of its the "Bells
and Whistles" and "freind-lier" interface. (Bought the software yesterday)

It'll be a problem verifying the image file Drive Image 7 spits out I am
already at a max with 2 hard drives.
I guess that will just have to come with future hardware upgrades. (80 Gb
is not as large as it once was especially when you use your comp to record
live T.V.)

I definitely thought about using RAID but opted against it in the end.
For a novice user, like myself, I thought being able to go back a week
before an "incident" defintely helps just veer off troubleshooting headaches
by doing a system restore altogether.

Pegasus, Dan, thanks a bunch!

Sorry about the date.

Gerard

 

[BudHop]

Dan DeStefano:

I ask for your suggestion on a usb external hard drive to use for first
order backup. I have a laptop with a usb port and a small 9g internal hard
drive. Obviously, I don't need a huge external. Can I assume the external
drive will be addressed directly via Win2k without special 3rd party
software?

I now have a mad dog usb external cd-rw (52x24x52) I now use. I will shift
this to a second order backup role. To use
the mad dog I must use Nero. I don't know if it is the drive or the software
but often the "burned" cd is not readable or won't burn properly. I am using
Memorex 4x disks at 4x so perhaps that is a factor.

In any case, I am tired of having only the mad dog as my "off the laptop"
backup.

Any advice you can provide will be appreciated. Also I am assuming ask this
in this thread is not some protocol screwup.

budhop