Acronis TI 2010 - Clone Or Backup Image?

Today I did my monthly disk imaging , and decided to test out the restore process using the smaller hard drive I have as a spare.

It worked, but because the spare drive is much smaller than my active drive, I can only only backup/restore the system partition, not the data one. Since this means I need to do do extra work getting access to user data files and large media files ( think Itunes Library, Adobe premiere, Adobe Lightroom Catalog )

In the event of catastrophic hard drive failure, I'd rather be able to pop in a spare drive, restore(if not a clone ), and go about my business.

I see 2 options right now, but let me show you my setup so that we are on the same page:

Netbook computer:
1 500GB HD ( drive I upgraded the Netbook to )
Partitioned as

• 50GB C Drive: OS and Programs
• 400GB D Drive: User Data, plus large file collections ( like OS Distro's, movies, music, etc )

Spare Drive:
1 100GB Drive (drive that came with the Netbook )

Backup Software: Acronis TIH 2010(paid version )


My options to decrease my downtime ( or "pop & go" ) are :

1. Resize D: partition to make it just large enough for user data. Make an E: partition and move large files there. Then have Acronis backup C&D , which will now fit on spare drive. ( Fast, but what about my iTunes library? )
2. Purchase 500GB spare drive, and clone Internal drive to it using my USB hard drive dock. Fast and I am not missing any data.

Option 1 is time intensive to set up , but its cheaper than 2, and my large files/file collections are currently backed up to a large external drive. So I would not lose them, but I would not have them until I got the replacement drive.

Option 2 is a lot simpler, the minus being I am buying a drive that I might never need. They are around $60 though, so it isn't a huge expense to save me time on backing up, and if internal drive fails, it won't take long at all to recover from it.


Note 1: In addition to a large external drive, I have critical files encrypted and backed up "in the cloud". So I'll never lose everything, even if my house is broken into and my hard drives are stolen.

Note 2: I am working overseas for another 6 months, so this Netbook is my primary system until I get back to the States. It's doing surprisingly well, and I am avoiding buying a new rig with RAID5/etc as that will be one more thing I'll have to ship back or abandon if I can't afford to ship it back.

Do the combined partitions exceed the size of your 100 GB HDD? If not Acronis should restore the partitions to the smaller drive but scale them to fit, (omitting the un-used space in the partitions).

nitroman84 said:

Do the combined partitions exceed the size of your 100 GB HDD? If not Acronis should restore the partitions to the smaller drive but scale them to fit, (omitting the un-used space in the partitions).

Click to expand...

That will work jagooch ^. Is 100gb easy to access cause if it is and you have more than 100gb of data best option I would see is get a bigger replacement and still use acronis..

nitroman84 said:

Do the combined partitions exceed the size of your 100 GB HDD? If not Acronis should restore the partitions to the smaller drive but scale them to fit, (omitting the un-used space in the partitions).

Click to expand...

Sorry, I meant does the used space of the combined partitions exceed your 100 GB HDD?

nitroman84 said:

nitroman84 said:

Do the combined partitions exceed the size of your 100 GB HDD? If not Acronis should restore the partitions to the smaller drive but scale them to fit, (omitting the un-used space in the partitions).

Click to expand...

Sorry, I meant does the used space of the combined partitions exceed your 100 GB HDD?

Click to expand...

Yes. Its around 250GB used right now.

krokusnat said:

nitroman84 said:

Do the combined partitions exceed the size of your 100 GB HDD? If not Acronis should restore the partitions to the smaller drive but scale them to fit, (omitting the un-used space in the partitions).

Click to expand...

That will work jagooch ^. Is 100gb easy to access cause if it is and you have more than 100gb of data best option I would see is get a bigger replacement and still use acronis..

Click to expand...

If I change the partioning scheme to :
C - 50G OS and programs
D - 50G User data(small files, small collections )
E - 400GB Big Files/large collections(iTunes,Movies, Adobe Lightroom Catalog,etc )

Then C and D would fit on the 100GB drive, but anything on E would have to be archived to another drive to avoid losing it if the Internal drive fails.

Hi there
I have an EASIER solution for you

Why not get one of those very small portable usb self powered external drives such as the WD passport. the 320 GBP ones cost almost nothing and you can get a large 1 TB one for around 70 USD / 59 GBP or EUR.

Backup your data and images to this. The stand alone bootable media (you can create on a USB) will allow you to recover from an external HDD.

I'd keep a backup also on your 'D' partition of the 'C' image too -- it's always worth having 2 copies of your OS partition backup.


On your Netbook just keep partitions C and D.

Cheers
jimbo