Clone vs. Back up vs. RAID 1

[beowulf7]

I have a 1 TB SATA hard drive that I'd like to back up. Here are 3 choices I've considered, each with some pros and cons. I'd like your input on which you prefer and why. Ideally, I'd like to use something that requires little effort to use and is easiest to recover data from. Note that I have Acronis True Image 9, which has clone and back up capability. Also, note that I have an external hard drive "toaster" (Thermaltake BlacX) and a 2nd 1 TB HDD, which connects to the PC via USB.

Clone:
This copies all of the data from the SATA HDD to the USB one. It also makes the USB HDD bootable. However, cloning would mean I can't use the computer during that time, so I'd only do it periodically, such as weekly or even monthly.

Back up:
I'd initially perform a full backup of the SATA HDD onto the USB one, wherein Acronis would create a .tib file on the backup HDD. Then, I can perform either incremental or differential backups periodically, which would be much faster. I'm not sure how I'd recover from a HDD crash, however, since the USB HDD would have a .tib file, which is obviously not bootable.

RAID 1
I'd have to install the 2nd 1 TB HDD in my computer so that both SATA HDDs are inside. Then I'd have to configure the computer for RAID 1. All data would be written to both HDDs simultaneously, so backing up is done without thought. However, if I mess up the contents of 1 HDD (such as getting malware, deleting a wrong file, or just general PEBCAK), then I'd ruin the contents of the 2nd HDD as well.

Your opinions? TIA.

[mrbobhcrhs]

the backup you would not recover the os just the files. I have used 2brightsparks synback to do this in the past. your best bet is raid0 with backup if the data is that important. I would stay way from software that puts all your data in some specal file type as you can only get to it with there software.

[beowulf7]

the backup you would not recover the os just the files. I have used 2brightsparks synback to do this in the past. your best bet is raid0 with backup if the data is that important. I would stay way from software that puts all your data in some specal file type as you can only get to it with there software.

Thanks for your input. The full backup I can do would include the OS. My 1 TB HDD consists of 2 partitions. 1 has the OS and apps. The other has data (multimedia files, documents, etc.). I could tell Acronis to back up both partitions.

I've never done a recovery using Acronis. In the past, I've used it to back up data. So I'm not sure exactly how recovery is done if you can't even boot and therefore can't run Acronis. I imagine that another HDD would have to be utilized to make it bootable and then install Acronis on it.

RAID seems convenient, but I'm concerned about corrupt data that would be written to both drives. Ideally, RAID 1 paired with a backup or clone strategy would be the best, but I don't have the time and resources to go to that length. : \

[dhc014]

You appear to be talking about RAID 1, not RAID 0. RAID 1 is the type of RAID that mirrors data on multiple drives.

RAID 0 does not maintain a full copy on each drive. When you write a file to a RAID 0 array, the file is split among all of the drives giving better performance, but you lose everything if any one drive in the array fails.

RAID 5 is a good compromise between RAID 1 and RAID 0 if your controller supports it, though you need at least 3 drives.

My desktop uses RAID 5 and I also use Windows 7's built-in backup feature to back up my documents and pictures and such to a 1.5TB external drive. I also back up my laptop to this external drive with room to spare.

[beowulf7]

You appear to be talking about RAID 1, not RAID 0. RAID 1 is the type of RAID that mirrors data on multiple drives.

RAID 0 does not maintain a full copy on each drive. When you write a file to a RAID 0 array, the file is split among all of the drives giving better performance, but you lose everything if any one drive in the array fails.

RAID 5 is a good compromise between RAID 1 and RAID 0 if your controller supports it, though you need at least 3 drives.

My desktop uses RAID 5 and I also use Windows 7's built-in backup feature to back up my documents and pictures and such to a 1.5TB external drive. I also back up my laptop to this external drive with room to spare.
Yes, thanks for the correction. I meant RAID 1. I updated my posts. Sorry for the confusion. The problem with RAID 5 is that, even if my motherboard supported it (not sure - it's the Asus one from Summer 2005 that supports AMD Athlon Socket 939 CPU), Like you said, I'd need 3 HDDs, which means to buy yet another 1 TB HDD, which is not in the budget at this time.

That seems like a good strategy you have to back up your desktop and laptop onto the external HDD with Windows 7. I should mention I have Windows XP, which why I'd use Acronis for cloning and/or backing up.

[Mixels]

You appear to already know the advantages and disadvantages of each method. We can't really help you make a decision beyond that.

I prefer your "back up" method, but I don't do incremental or differential backups. I create an image of the drive when just Windows is installed, and that's that. I keep all my commercial software backed up on an external drive in iso or exe format (whichever it came in) and keep the discs, and I don't keep any other important data on my primary drive. (I'm a photographer. Photos go straight to an external that is backed up to a second external regularly.)

[flea]

I'm not sure how I'd recover from a HDD crash, however, since the USB HDD would have a .tib file, which is obviously not bootable.

You would use Acronis to create a boot CD.

[2cheap4retail]

RAID is NOT backup... RAID can protect against a drive failure, but NOT against human stupidity.

if you care about your data:

RAID + file backups to an external or DVDR on a regular basis.(daily or weekly) + clone for complete system recovery (weekly or monthly)

if that's too much work or hardware required, skip the RAID and reduce full drive clones down to just before and after major software or OS installs/updates, but keep with the regular file backups... that is what i mostly do, two drives in a system, backup from hd to hd (full disk images and file backups) and also critical file backups copied to a different pc's second drive via network



note your original ATI CD is bootable.. i've actually never installed the app, i always use that CD.

[Moeyyy]

My 2 cents would say once you get your OS installed, all your software installed and are call current with updates, use acronis to make an image of the drive and save it to the "external" 1tb drive.

Then use syncback to do nightly backups of whatever data you store on the computer to the 1tb "external".

This way you can get back up and running quickly if you get a virus infection or need to reinstall windows, and all of your data will be stored on 2 different drives.

Next step in protection would be weekly or monthly backups of data and store off site (incase of fire/natural disaster/robbery).

[lightsycle]

If you install Acronis and create the bootable media, it is essentially a live linux CD that runs Acronis. As long as the TIB file is anywhere local or on the network you can boot from the disk and copy it to any drive that will hold the data no mater what is no it, windows or not. The only thing installing windows first would do is let you install the software then restore the image. Doing this would wipe anything from the drive anyway and would require a reboot, where the image would be put back on the drive. Really it is best to install Acronis once, create the boot CD and just use that exclusively for creating and restoring images. I've done this myself several times, though Acronis 9 did not support SATA (at least not mine) so I have 11 now.

[lightsycle]

I don't mean to hijack your thread, but I'm in the process of doing the same thing, only with 2 servers. I'm trying to setup one server (WHS-2003) as the primary and will probably use Distributed File System and Data Replication Service to have the secondary mirror the primary. Still learning all the in's and out's of Active directory and Domain Controllers and FDS and DRS. Good Times. :-)

Something like this: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Windows2003-Distributed-File-System.html is what I'm working on.


There is a power toy called SyncToy 2.1 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&DisplayLang=en) which allows you to sync folders, local or networked. All you do is set up the folders, the sync type and push run. It would work great for data between your HDD and a few externals, or any combination of that. Comes in x86 and x64.

[vivahate]

I clone the disk weekly (every sunday morning the main disk is cloned to the backup disk) and do incremental backups during the week of data I want to save (onto the main disk)

Not perfect, but I can live with one week old data in the event of a disaster recovery

[beowulf7]

Thanks for the input, everyone. I think I'll do a hybrid of cloning my C:\ drive and backing up my D:\ drive. I'm not sure if Acronis would allow a physical disk to be broken out into partitions like that.

[G37]

Acronis supports disk imaging, partition imaging and individual file backup in any combination you want.

You can "peek" into a .tib and pluck out a single file, directory, etc if you only need that data and not the entire image.

It's fast, great compression/encryption and with the Plus Pack Add-on you can Restore to Dissimilar hardware.

I keep various 32/64bit images of XP, Vista, Win7, centOS, Ubuntu, etc on my backup server for fresh installs. Whether new PC or repairing, just pop in the bootup disk, grab the image from the server and reboot to load new drivers. Fresh installs or complete image rebuilds of any OS in less than 5 minutes.

[callpocket]

If you have room in the tower for an additional hard drive, I'd get one that is the same size as the one already installed. Keep going the way you are going with the externals ( which I wouldn't trust due to heat issues if you leave them running all the time) and use Acronis to image the entire boot disk (both partitions) to the additional hard drive once a week. That way, if your boot drive fails, you can replace it with the slave you have used to image to each week and be up and running in a matter of minutes.

[beowulf7]

Another reason I'm scared to do RAID w/o a backup solution (which is the ideal way, but probably impractical given that I'm not a data center :lol: ): a friend called me up tonight in panic saying he can't use his computer anymore. All he can do is login and that's about it. He obviously got infected w/ some pretty bad malware. If that happened to me and all I had was RAID, then both of my HDDs would be screwed.

I'll play around w/ Acronis a bit more this weekend and try various partitioning on the external drive and test booting from as the C: drive. I normally keep that external drive powered off, so I'm not concerned about heating issues. Thanks again for your input.

[Mavtech]

I use Acronis 9 almost every day at work. Works great. As mentioned before, I vote you use that to make images and then back up the data. This is what I do at home.

[mongo123]

Well, thought I'd post some worthwhile information for folks attempting to backup a RAID 1 drive setup using Intel RAID hardware on their motherboard. First off, using Acronis True Image Workstation 9.1 to clone from RAID 1 array to a single disc for backup yields an exact bootable copy. No problems. However, Acronis True Image Workstation 10 fails, producing a nonbootable clone, although the disc is readable with all files copied, regardless of whether you use the NT Signature on copying or not. Further, Acronis True Image 2010 Home also fails, producing a nonbootable copy as well although again all files are copied. Although not tested, reports elsewhere on the web confirm that Acronis True Image Home 2011 also fails to successfully clone a RAID 1 array to a disc, producing only a copy of all files but an utterly unbootable disc.

Personally, I've got a RAID 1 array and my third hard drive bay has just a single SATA drive in it. The RAID 1 array is slightly faster than a single SATA disc for day to day or gaming use, plus it has the redundancy in case of hard drive failure. However, for viruses or simply my screwing up, RAID 1 is no protection, and so by cloning to the other SATA drive, I can boot to it, copy any updated files from the unbootable (but hopefully accessible) RAID 1 array, and then clone the SATA drive back to the RAID 1 array. I've done this a few times, always with Acronis True Image Workstation 9.1

It seems that later versions of Acronis are neither better nor faster; they consistently produce nonbootable clones. Sadly, it seems that by doing this Acronis is begging people to pirate older versions of their software. A shame, given that it's a solid cloning product.

[G37]

However, Acronis True Image Workstation 10 fails, producing a nonbootable clone, although the disc is readable with all files copied, regardless of whether you use the NT Signature on copying or not. Further, Acronis True Image 2010 Home also fails, producing a nonbootable copy as well although again all files are copied. Although not tested, reports elsewhere on the web confirm that Acronis True Image Home 2011 also fails to successfully clone a RAID 1 array to a disc, producing only a copy of all files but an utterly unbootable disc.

You have to manually mark the partition as "Active" to get it to boot, or do a repair install, or use a 3rd party boot manager.

Also, on most Win7 installs the 100MB BCD partition is the Active partition.

[beowulf7]

Holy old thread revival. I'm still using the older version of Acronis and don't see a need to upgrade it. : \

[.DC.]

Holy old thread revival. I'm still using the older version of Acronis and don't see a need to upgrade it. : \
yeah...way old...

BTW MAVTECH says Raid <> a Backup

:lmao:

[onclejean]

Your opinions? TIA.

I have used Acronis TI Work Station 9 in win XP in the manner you are contemplating. Before moving to Win 7 the Windows upgrade adviser warned this software was not compatible with Win 7 and an upgrade would be needed.

I installed Win 7 in mid 2010 and waited for the 2010 upgrade of Acronis to become available. I then bought the new version and installed it. Alas! it was no good,
- Would not create bootable media and
- Acronis Loader prevented Win 7 from booting.

Fortunately the old recovery disk from A 9 did work as far as allowing me to boot into Win 7 where I was able to repair the MBR. However the Acronis new application as it stood was useless so I decided to uninstall it. However the Acronis uninstaller did not remove the application or the Acronis Secure zone.

(I was able to remove Acronis and all its components using the utility YourUninstaller 2010)

So I would recommend you stay clear of Acronis in Win 7.

Now I use Casper 2010 (Casper Secure Drive Backup 2.0) and clone my entire system disk to an identical drive: Casper told me this would be OK for single disks or Raids