more than one program

Hello
I back my system to an external usb drive eack week with Acronis - a full backup.
My data is on 2 different removable media.

Question - is it a good or bad idea to use Win 7 Backup and Restore program to image to the usb drive along with Acronis?
I ask this in case Acronis fails.
On the other hand two programs may be excessive and cause a conflict.

I have system restore program along with another registry backup program and that works well.

Thank you
Peter

Depends on how paranoid one is. :)

I use the built in Windows 7 imaging tool, Macrium free, and either EaseUS Todo Backup free or Paragon Backup & Recovery free. As long as the external USB hard drive has the room, it doesn't matter how many images you keep on that drive or which program you used to create those images.

Personally, I keep each image on its own separate external USB hard drive. If the Macrium external hard drive fails, all I've lost are the Macrium images. I still have the Windows 7 images on one external drive as well as the EaseUS or Paragon images on another external drive. If all images are kept on just one drive and that drive fails, you've lost everything. Same philosophy about not keeping an image on a separate partition of the internal hard drive. If the internal drive fails you've lost the C: partition as well as the partition containing the images.

I backup my laptop to one usb and the desktop to the other.
First, you answered the question I asked.
Secondly, I guess I could backup a folder of each pc to each drive. That way if a drive fails I'll still have an image of each.
Thank you

After having two HDD failures, I have learned to backup system images, and all my personal data on multiple drives. It helps me to sleep better at night! I have images stored from Macrium, Easeus Todo Work Station, Acronis True Image and Windows system imaging. Rather than having all the programs installed at once, I create recovery disks for each program and alternate using them to save updated images.

What do you think of my cost conscious idea of imaging the desktop and laptop to each of my 2 usb drives. This way each pc is on 2 different drives.
I could make a folder on each ext drive so I would not confuse the lap and desktop.
Social security does not allow for too many electronics as when I was working over 20 years ago.

seven2 said:

What do you think of my cost conscious idea of imaging the desktop and laptop to each of my 2 usb drives. This way each pc is on 2 different drives.
I could make a folder on each ext drive so I would not confuse the lap and desktop.
Social security does not allow for too many electronics as when I was working over 20 years ago.

It sounds like a very good idea to me, and in fact that is what I do myself. I create separate folders for each program and label them something like, "Easeus Backups", or "Macrium Backups" etc. I save images from both my laptop and PC in the same folder for each program. It doesn't matter that they are from different computers, as when you go to restore them, the program that created the image will ask you which image you wish to restore. You can also label each sub folder inside the main folder as "Macrium Laptop Images" or "Windows PC images", etc. That makes it easier to differentiate between them if you ever need to restore you computer. These are just my thoughts and you can customize them to meet your needs.

Let's say you have all of your desktop images on External Drive # 1.
And all of your laptop images on External Drive # 2.
If External Drive # 1 fails, you've lost all of your desktop images.
If External Drive # 2 fails, you've lost all of your laptop images.

But if you put desktop images and laptop images on each external drive, even if one of the external drives should fail, you'll still have some of your desktop and laptop images on the remaining external drive. You could use Acronis on External Drive # 1 and Windows 7 imaging on External Drive # 2 (just as an example.) There should be a zero cost factor because you already have the imaging software and external drives. Your major concern is how much space does each external hard drive have because that will determine how many images you can store on each drive.

Another concern is whether or not a newer image will overwrite an older image. Again, just as an example, a Windows 7 image is always called WindowsImageBackup. If you try to create a second image you'll get a warning that it will overwrite the original WindowsImageBackup. If you want to keep both images, you'd have to rename the first WindowsImageBackup to something else, like perhaps Desktop071412. After you image the laptop you might rename it to Laptop071412. Each image gets a different name and you store as many images as the drive has room for. If you have to use one of the images, simply rename it back to WindowsImageBackup.

I understand about the two .
I have 1T on one usb drive and 2T on the other so room is ok.
May I ask, is there a way I can get my system image to Skydrive which is my Hotmail account's cloud. It allows for 7.5 GB? My desktop is about 6 GB and the same for the laptop.
Can you just copy and paste, and if so how so you can restore.

Imaging software that I've used (Windows 7, Macrium, EaseUS Todo and Paragon) will compress the image by about 50%. The more you move a completed system image around (from the external hard drive, to the cloud, back to the external hard drive if and when you have to use it) the greater the chance it won't work.

You say your desktop is "...about 6 GB and the same for the laptop." Is that the total used space on the internal hard drive? (Total capacity of hard drive - free space = total used space.) If so, there's really no need to move any images to the cloud, IMHO.

I have Cloud with both Skydrive and Google+ -both are free and each would accomodate the backup of each pc
I have a second account with Skdrive with more cloud room.
So, there is enough room but your allusion to trouble recovering by moving images around makes sense.
I wonder how people image to a cloud if it is the first image. I don't know where you start on the cloud end or the other. I do not thnk I would do it for the reason you suggest but theoretically it would be intersting to know how to do it. I could back up my laptop to one cloud and my desktop to another if I knew how.

If you know, please tell me and if you don't perhaps someone could jump in and help us out..