Deciding on a backup procedure using 3 drives

[AL D]

I am about to build a PC. I have three hard drives:
40gb
80gb
120gb

Here is what I am considering:
Use the 40gb drive for the operating syetm (Win XP) and my programs.
Use the 80gb drive for data storage.
Divide the 120gb drive into two partitions:
1x 40gb
1 x 80gb...

....Use the 40gb partition to hold a copy of the contents of my 40gb
drive.
Use the 80gb partition to hold a copy of the contents of my 80gb
drive.

That way, if my 40gb boot drive fails, I can boot from the 40gb
partition of the 120gb drive. Is that correct? Will the BIOS recognise
that partition as a drive, so I can set it as the drive to boot from
if necessary?

The other question is: is there an inexpensive but effective software
to use for doing the backups of the 40 and 80gb drives?
Can it simply be done with DOS "xcopy"? or is there a low-cost windows
utility that does the job better and easier? (Hopefully there are
programs that are as efective as "Ghost" but cheaper.)

Many thanks,

Al D

 

[David Maynard]

I am about to build a PC. I have three hard drives:
40gb
80gb
120gb

Here is what I am considering:
Use the 40gb drive for the operating syetm (Win XP) and my programs.
Use the 80gb drive for data storage.
Divide the 120gb drive into two partitions:
1x 40gb
1 x 80gb...

...Use the 40gb partition to hold a copy of the contents of my 40gb
drive.
Use the 80gb partition to hold a copy of the contents of my 80gb
drive.

Since it's almost certain that the 120gig drive is faster than the 40gig
drive I'd do it exactly the opposite. Use the 40gig partition on the 120 as
the primary boot drive, the 80gig partition for data, and back them up to
the separate 40 and 80 gig drives.

That way, if my 40gb boot drive fails, I can boot from the 40gb
partition of the 120gb drive. Is that correct? Will the BIOS recognise
that partition as a drive, so I can set it as the drive to boot from
if necessary?

The BIOS will recognize the drive as a drive. It's the partition table and
boot loader on the drive that knows if it's partitioned and what to boot
from (e.g. the 'active' partition).

 

[AL D]

The 40gb drive was purchased a few days ago. The other two drives were
purchased about a year ago. All are 7200rpm if I remember correctly.
The 40gb one has 2mb cache. I'm not sure about the other two.

Yes, if the 40 gb drive is slower, then that seems a good idea; Thank
you. Do you know of a utility that can measure the actual speed of
each drive?

OK - thank you again.

Al D

 

[Chris Hill]

I am about to build a PC. I have three hard drives:
40gb
80gb
120gb

Here is what I am considering:
Use the 40gb drive for the operating syetm (Win XP) and my programs.
Use the 80gb drive for data storage.
Divide the 120gb drive into two partitions:
1x 40gb
1 x 80gb...

...Use the 40gb partition to hold a copy of the contents of my 40gb
drive.
Use the 80gb partition to hold a copy of the contents of my 80gb
drive.

That way, if my 40gb boot drive fails, I can boot from the 40gb
partition of the 120gb drive. Is that correct? Will the BIOS recognise
that partition as a drive, so I can set it as the drive to boot from
if necessary?

The other question is: is there an inexpensive but effective software
to use for doing the backups of the 40 and 80gb drives?
Can it simply be done with DOS "xcopy"? or is there a low-cost windows
utility that does the job better and easier? (Hopefully there are
programs that are as efective as "Ghost" but cheaper.)

If the 40gb is a maxtor, I'd use it for the backup and I'd put it in
an external case and keep it powered off as much as possible to make
it last as long as a 40gb maxtor can, not all that long.

 

[AL D]

It's a Seagate ST340015A Barracuda 40GB 5400RPM ATA/100 2MB Cache

I guess the 5400rpm makes it faster than my other two drives...

The idea of using an external box sems worth considering.

Al

 

[AL D]

What am I saying?? 5400 is obviously slower than 7200rpm... but I'm
not sure about the 7200rpm, as I have lost the receipt for the two
bigger drives.

Al

 

[David Maynard]

The 40gb drive was purchased a few days ago. The other two drives were
purchased about a year ago. All are 7200rpm if I remember correctly.
The 40gb one has 2mb cache. I'm not sure about the other two.

Depends more on which model they are than when bought.

If that maxtor is a single platter DiamondMax Plus 8 then it might be as
fast as the 120gb, if the 120 is three 40MB platters. On the other hand,
there are plenty of people selling the earlier multi-platter 40gb maxtors
'new' and if you got a 'great deal' then it's probably not a single platter
drive.

To explain, next to drive speed (which is out of the equation as yours are
all 7200 RPM) the total size vs number of platters makes the biggest
difference because that affects track density and more data per track means
more coming off per turn. I.E. track rate = RPM x MB/track. Note that it
isn't as simple as 'twice as big = twice as fast' since the number of
tracks is also increased and track density is not a constant.

Buffer size helps some but it's way down on the totem pole since you can't
'buffer' what ain't got there yet.

Yes, if the 40 gb drive is slower, then that seems a good idea; Thank
you. Do you know of a utility that can measure the actual speed of
each drive?

hdtach, sisoft sandra, and others.

http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_hdd.html

OK - thank you again.

Btw, unless you're mirroring it's a good idea to have the backup drives in
removable trays as spinning them all the time shortens the lifespan for no
good reason.

Mirroring is convenient, and built into Windows XP, but there's a
performance hit on writes as it has to write to both and it would be even
worse with different speed drives as writes would be limited by whichever
is slowest. On the other hand, writes are not as abundant as reads so you
might consider it, especially since you're going to segregate data from the
O.S. (I mean, imagine mirroring a video capture partition. It would double
the disk write time right when you need the speed and you'd be better off
writing to one disk and then copying when there's no time constraint.)

 

[Conor]

The 40gb drive was purchased a few days ago. The other two drives were
purchased about a year ago. All are 7200rpm if I remember correctly.
The 40gb one has 2mb cache. I'm not sure about the other two.

Irrelevent. Drive technology hasn't really had much advancement in
speed in the last couple of years.

Yes, if the 40 gb drive is slower, then that seems a good idea; Thank
you. Do you know of a utility that can measure the actual speed of
each drive?

HDTACH

 

[David Maynard]

Irrelevent. Drive technology hasn't really had much advancement in
speed in the last couple of years.

'Much advancement" depends on how one defines it but platter density
certainly does make a difference and it's higher now than it used to be.

For eample, Maxtor now makes a single platter 40GB drive that should be, in
theory at least, every bit as fast as a three 40GB platter 120GB drive.

 

[Al Dykes]

Depends more on which model they are than when bought.

If that maxtor is a single platter DiamondMax Plus 8 then it might be as
fast as the 120gb, if the 120 is three 40MB platters. On the other hand,
there are plenty of people selling the earlier multi-platter 40gb maxtors
'new' and if you got a 'great deal' then it's probably not a single platter
drive.

To explain, next to drive speed (which is out of the equation as yours are
all 7200 RPM) the total size vs number of platters makes the biggest
difference because that affects track density and more data per track means
more coming off per turn. I.E. track rate = RPM x MB/track. Note that it
isn't as simple as 'twice as big = twice as fast' since the number of
tracks is also increased and track density is not a constant.

Buffer size helps some but it's way down on the totem pole since you can't
'buffer' what ain't got there yet.


hdtach, sisoft sandra, and others.

http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_hdd.html



Btw, unless you're mirroring it's a good idea to have the backup drives in
removable trays as spinning them all the time shortens the lifespan for no
good reason.

I have three drives in my good PC. C is the system, applications and
my documents and stuff I write and my photography inventory.

I use drive #2 and #3 for a bunch of things.

Photoshop tmp files go on #2

OS swap goes on #3.

Nothing on #2 or #3 is irreplacable. They don't get backed up.

I use Acronis TrueImage to do an image backup of C to #2 or #3. I
flip-flop between #2 and #3 and keep at least two generations of the
backup image on EACH drive. I've rebuilt C in under an hour,
including the time spent to install a new disk drive, just boot off
the Acronis recovery CD.

I also backup my laptop over the LAN with trueimage to #2 or #3,
flip-floping. I've re-imaged my laptop in about the same abount of
time.

I also sync /My Documents between the laptop and the desktop over the
LAN after each work session.

And I burn CDs of project files and get them out of the house periodically.

 

[JAD]

Keep away from decision making based on speed, its silly
Do the best you can, roll some chicken bones over them and pick the most
RELIABLE(newest?) drive for your OS the next reliable for your back up...its
a crap shoot when beginning with 'slightly?' used hardware

 

[DaveW]

No, that is not right. You can only boot from the C: partition in your
system design. So you would not be able to boot from the 120 GB harddrive.

 

[David Maynard]

No, that is not right.

If his BIOS allows him to specify which drive to boot from, as in IDE-0,
IDE-1, IDE-2, IDE-3 like mine does, then he can boot from IDE-0, IDE-1,
IDE-2, or IDE-3.

You can only boot from the C: partition in your
system design.

Only Windows knows what the 'letter' is and it has nothing to do with
booting from the drive. That's handled by the boot loader on the drive
that's booted and if, for example, it's Linux the partition might be
'/dev/hda3' with no 'C:' to be found anywhere.

And even with WindowsXP you might find, through some quirk when it did
device detection, that your system drive is F:, not C:.

So you would not be able to boot from the 120 GB harddrive.

As long as it's got a boot track and a valid system it can be booted.

 

[AL D]

I guess it makes sense to use the 40gb drive as a backup of the OS (if
indeed, a backup of the OS is considered to be worth having)...

How do I format the 40gb drive it so that it has a boot track, i.e.,
so that it can be booted from in an emergency?

I have actually already built the PC with the 120gb drive and the 80gb
drive, but the 40gb drive is not yet installed. At present, the 120gb
drive has one large partition. Would it be wiser to divide it into two
partitions:
1x 40gb for the OS (to be backed up onto the 40gb new drive)
and 1x 80gb partition for files? (to be backed up onto the 80gb
drive)?

Is there any advantage in having two partitions on the large drive, as
described above, or should I just leave it as one large partition?

Thanks again,

Al D

 

[David Maynard]

I guess it makes sense to use the 40gb drive as a backup of the OS (if
indeed, a backup of the OS is considered to be worth having)...

Personally, I don't. IMO it's not *that* much, whatever 'that much' is, to
redo the system. Data is another matter.

But for a business I backup the system disk as well since it costs money to
pay someone to rebuild it (I'm 'free' to myself ). On the other hand, it
would likely be a 'standard issue' image and the user would have to handle
his own wierdo stuff.

If it was my only system I'd be tempted to back it up so a 'fix' would be
immediately available but since I have more than one system I have
essentially a 'live' dup already running.

The point is, it depends on what the 'cost' vs 'risk' is to you either way.

How do I format the 40gb drive it so that it has a boot track, i.e.,
so that it can be booted from in an emergency?

If you do a ghost disk to disk copy (or equivalent) it'll copy everything,
including the boot track.

I have actually already built the PC with the 120gb drive and the 80gb
drive, but the 40gb drive is not yet installed. At present, the 120gb
drive has one large partition. Would it be wiser to divide it into two
partitions:
1x 40gb for the OS (to be backed up onto the 40gb new drive)
and 1x 80gb partition for files? (to be backed up onto the 80gb
drive)?

Gonna be a pain in the neck to try culling the O.S. and programs off a
single partition to squeeze onto a 40 gig drive. A straight, equal size,
partition dup, however, is a piece of cake.

Is there any advantage in having two partitions on the large drive, as
described above, or should I just leave it as one large partition?

If you want to back it up to a 40 gig drive that is essentially live and
ready to go then match the partition sizes.

 

[AL D]

I'm not sure how much work is involved. Supposing Windows XP got all
messed up, and it was necessary to reinstall it.... would that be all
there is to it, or would you also have to reinstall all your other
programs too?

Thanks,

Al D

 

[David Maynard]

I'm not sure how much work is involved. Supposing Windows XP got all
messed up, and it was necessary to reinstall it.... would that be all
there is to it, or would you also have to reinstall all your other
programs too?

Thanks,

Al D

Depends on what 'all messed up' means. A repair install (not a 'fresh'
install) generally retains programs, documents, and settings but it can't
'retain' them if they ain't intact.

Minor problems can often be handled by a System Restore roll back.

Worst case is a dead hard drive and yes, you're then in the situation of
reinstalling every bit and jot unless you have a full backup, such as a
live hard drive copy or an image somewhere.

As I said, in my case I have another whole *system* that, while not
identical, serves as a kind of live disk 'backup'.

 

[AL D]

You mean like have your OS *and* your programs all on one drive, and
keep a full copy of that drive on another drive? Yes, I can see the
sense in that. Can you explain what is the difference between a simple
backup of a disc's contents and an 'image'? Thanks.

Al

 

[Mxsmanic]

The other question is: is there an inexpensive but effective software
to use for doing the backups of the 40 and 80gb drives?

Acronis True Image

 

[Mxsmanic]

Irrelevent. Drive technology hasn't really had much advancement in
speed in the last couple of years.

Or in the last couple of decades, excluding capacity.