Mirrored my hard drive with Acronis a couple of days ago.

[Getback]

I didn't have a backup hard drive so I used my DVD drive. Only took about 4 disks which surprised me. That was 21.3 GB backed up. Now this is the first time I have done this. So I was wondering, did I do right to use the dvd drive to mirror my computer?

[Ghosth]

Any backup has to be better than no backup.

[Getback]

Ordered new internal drive to back up my computers. Will be networking.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Just remember a backup is not a backup untill you verify it actually works when doing a restore..

[Getback]

Just remember a backup is not a backup untill you verify it actually works when doing a restore..

That has crossed my mind so often these days. 


I have a lot information on my nongaming computer that I would just hate to lose.

[eagl]

I finally bit the bullet and purchased a NAS and norton ghost.  I bought ghost just in time, because I had a series of loosely related hardware problems that were very difficult to track down, and ended up restoring from the backups about 8 times.  The computer was an old one that I had upgraded part by part over several years, and more than one part started failing, corrupting the OS each time.  That sucked.

At first I just had norton ghost backing up to an external USB hard drive.  That was a 500GB drive in a cheapo aluminum external chassis.  That worked ok, but I wanted something more robust and that required less user intervention since I didn't want my backup drive actually hooked up to the computer I was backing up, and I didn't want the USB drive running all the time either.  So I got the NAS box, 4 500GB drives in a RAID array plugged into my LAN.  It's not the fastest solution in the world (about as fast as a USB drive actually) but it works fine and is pretty reliable.

As said before, the true test is a backup/restore cycle.  The only way to really do that without risking all your data is to buy a second blank hard drive, back up your computer, swap the main drive out for the new empty drive, and try to restore it.  If it works, you win.  If not, just swap the drives back and try again.

[Ghastly]

If you have an older, Linux capable system just hanging around, the openfiler SAN/NAS is a good open source solution.

<S>

[Getback]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136359

This is what I ordered. Never crossed my mind to get a review first. Went by price and 60 bucks is way reasonable.

[eagl]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136359

This is what I ordered. Never crossed my mind to get a review first. Went by price and 60 bucks is way reasonable.

That's probably a fine drive.  Capacities are way up nowadays and it seems like the manufacturers are competing on quality and value-added features like lower power consumption, lower heat/noise production, etc.

For a backup drive, those "green" drives are fine.  If you want a new primary system drive, the WDC "black" drives ought to be a bit faster.

[Sundowner]

Just remember a backup is not a backup untill you verify it actually works when doing a restore..

Why do a disk image that must be restored when you can make an EXACT clone of your hard drive that is plug and play as soon as the copy is made?

Using this method I have a perfect copy of my C: drive. NOT a disk image that must be restored--an exact, bootable system drive that is a perfectly mirrored hard drive that is ready to use by just plugging it in.

I KNOW the duplicate drive works because as soon as the duplication is finished I plug in the new drive, operate from it from then on and put my original away as my backup!

This method can be used to "clone" any of your system drives...does not have to be the drive your operating system resides on.

Here's my original post from a year ago:

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,244233.0.html

Regards,
Sun

[Chalenge]

I have been using Acronis for a long time now but I have never backed up to DVD. I have an exact copy of my boot drive on the book shelf but I also have an 'Acronis Secure Zone' on a separate internal hard drive. I also maintain multiple drives internally for Flight Sims and TV recordings that are all backed up to seperate hard drives through an eSATA dock.

Of course I go to this trouble because I operate off of a RAID configuration that is supposed to have a high failure rate but only seems to lose a major boot file once every three or four months. So far I have had two failures (minor) that cause no loss of files and only a one hour reload time without the need to even open up the box.

I also have a Windows page file on every drive which I find really helps to smooth things out nicely.

[68Wooley]

FWIW, I've been using Acronis for a couple of years including a couple of successful restores. Seems to be a pretty solid product.

That said, I've always backed up to an external disk of soem some sort - never to DVD.