Good backup policy?

manhunter2826 said:

Agreed Sir, as I keep saying: be wise before the event.

As my brother is always saying...

"I never make the same mistake twice. I'm way to busy making new ones..."

pparks1 said:

I too run Acronis True Image 2010...however I use that for very simply system images. I don't actually like using it to backup data, as the file is then in a proprietary file format and I have to use software to restore it. I much rather just have the files in their native format on an external drive, this way I can easily retrieve them using any other windows machine, a linux host or a mac.

From a Macrium image I can retrieve the files as if I had used copy/paste to get them there. They are all freely accessible once I mount the image (which is 3 clicks).

pparks1 said:

whs said:

From a Macrium image I can retrieve the files as if I had used copy/paste to get them there. They are all freely accessible once I mount the image (which is 3 clicks).

True, but if the only machine you have available is Linux or Mac...I don't think you can install and run Macrium...so you don't have the ability to mount the image.

I'm not criticizing you for choosing this for backups...I'm just explaining why I prefer to just have the files loose in the backup.

OK, understand. But now you are throwing another monkey wrench into the equation. I am all windows, so I do not have that problem. But I sometimes use Fedora for playing around. I will check on occasion what that would do.
Btw: I am not trying to push my approach. I was only suggesting it as another alternative - for those that have no monkey wrenches - LOL.

whs said:

That's fair. One should always use English in addition. But Google Translate does a pretty decent job too. I just thought the multilingual might give some "color" to the forum - smell of the wide world, LOL.

about 15gigs for Windows

CommonTater, 15 gigs may be a little shy. I would recommend 25 to 30 gigs.

I'm running in a 15 gig partition now... with 10.9gb free.

I only install about 3gb of software and don't have system restore or automatic updates running, so bloat isn't an issue.

Should be fine.

CommonTater said:

whs said:

That's fair. One should always use English in addition. But Google Translate does a pretty decent job too. I just thought the multilingual might give some "color" to the forum - smell of the wide world, LOL.

about 15gigs for Windows

CommonTater, 15 gigs may be a little shy. I would recommend 25 to 30 gigs.

I'm running in a 15 gig partition now... with 10.9gb free.

I only install about 3gb of software and don't have system restore or automatic updates running, so bloat isn't an issue.

Should be fine.

That is really cool. But I would be interested to know how you fit the system into 4.1GBs. Mine is about 18GB with pagefile less shadowstorage and hibernation file. My winsxs alone is over 4.1GBs.

My strategy is this:

Drive C has all the programs that have been installed. It is mirrored in Win 7 to DVDs. If hard drive crashes or I get a virus (hasn't happened yet) I simply load the bootable disk image and I am back on line back to the day I created the image.

Drive D (Hard internal disk) has data (i.e. data bases, financials, pictures, music etc.) It is backed up to Drive G (External hard drive on USB) using Synchback SE on a daily basis.

Every so many months, Drive D is copied to DVDs and stored off-site.

Lessons learned. My wife's computer had a hard drive failure. No problem. Put in a new one and ran Norton Ghost. I had not been doing disk images frequently enough and Windows ME in lieu of Windows XP showed up on the reboot. 12 hrs later all the software was restored. It is now ghosted and I will pay closer attention to timing on her system.

whs said:

That is really cool. But I would be interested to know how you fit the system into 4.1GBs. Mine is about 18GB with pagefile less shadowstorage and hibernation file. My winsxs alone is over 4.1GBs.

Well, here's a screen shot taken just now....



How did I do that with Windows 7 Ultimate? Well, I used VLite and removed Speech Recognition, Languages, Natural Language Search, Media Center and a couple of other things I'll never use in this lifetime.... Then I run with no system restore, no pagefile, no hibernation and no automatic updates.

Been running my systems like that since win2000 ... which I could actually install in under 700megs. XP needed about 1.5gb...

CommonTater said:

whs said:

That is really cool. But I would be interested to know how you fit the system into 4.1GBs. Mine is about 18GB with pagefile less shadowstorage and hibernation file. My winsxs alone is over 4.1GBs.

Well, here's a screen shot taken just now....



How did I do that with Windows 7 Ultimate? Well, I used VLite and removed Speech Recognition, Languages, Natural Language Search, Media Center and a couple of other things I'll never use in this lifetime.... Then I run with no system restore, no pagefile, no hibernation and no automatic updates.

Been running my systems like that since win2000 ... which I could actually install in under 700megs. XP needed about 1.5gb...

That is really nice. That would be of great interest for the people that put Win7 on a small SSD. With a 30GB Vertex ($99), there would be even enough room for the data on e.g. a laptop.