What Kind of External Back up hard drive should I get?

[GeneO]

I get 120 MB/s from 2TB WD Green external (eSATA).

Hmm Interesting.

For the average person browsing the forum with say a notebook if you get a usb drive drive at a good price - go for it. Yes definitely have at least 2. Keep a reasonably uptodate image on both ideally with 2 imaging packages and your set.

I have 2.5 inch 5400/5200 rpm portables and 3.5 inch 7200 rpm. There is a noticeable difference in speed but not a major factor for me. If I'm not using the externals I turn them off. I try to keep my regular images to around 50GB.

My experience as well is that the 3.5 in 7200 rpm can get much hotter than the 5400 portables. I use a $10 fan to keep the temp down on a hot day.

What do you mean, Hmm interesting - don't you believe me?

Makes for an excellent backup device. Regardless, if you are using USB 2.0, the drive speed is relevant only as it affects the drive temperature.

 

[pparks1]

GeneO,

I think part of the problem might be how we describe our benchmarks. For example, based on that HDTune results that you posted and your WD Caviar Green...I would look at those results and say that my drive benchmarked in the 95MB/sec arena. However, if you go based on the maximum speed of the drive than 121MB/sec is what you would say. But we would both be describing the same thing.

For example, I posted the HD Tune results of my 7200.12 on page 1 of this thread. It maxed around 124MB/sec, minimum of 63MB/sec. But if I were talking to a friend, I would say the drive is right around 100MB/sec as that is what it averages.

 

[GeneO]

GeneO,

I think part of the problem might be how we describe our benchmarks. For example, based on that HDTune results that you posted and your WD Caviar Green...I would look at those results and say that my drive benchmarked in the 95MB/sec arena. However, if you go based on the maximum speed of the drive than 121MB/sec is what you would say. But we would both be describing the same thing.

For example, I posted the HD Tune results of my 7200.12 on page 1 of this thread. It maxed around 124MB/sec, minimum of 63MB/sec. But if I were talking to a friend, I would say the drive is right around 100MB/sec as that is what it averages.

I was responding to the usage on the first page - quoting a drive doing 120MB/s based on its top hd tune speed.

In any case, the implied claim was that 7200 rpm drives outperform 5400 rpm drives, which clearly isn't always true. And in this case, a lower, cooler rpm drive performs just as well as a 7200 one for sequential reads, and is more suitable for external use.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

I have both the Seagate FreeAgent Pro and the WD My Book Studio Edition they are both fine products with firewire/usb2.0/eSata connections. In my opinion I would purchase a quality enclosure and place one two or several quality drives in it making sure that each drive has at least 16mb of cache and actually prefer 32-64mb's all spinning at 7200 or 10,000 rpm when speed is needed and who doesn't want speed ! The advantage with this is the drives are clean with out all the preloaded software/bloatware.

 

[Josh7]

I'm not trying to be mean here but none of you answered my questions, you kinda just talked about your things...I defiantly wanna no how does the image software work? I don't get it why would I need it if everything goes on the hard drive anyway?

 

[linnemeyerhere]

You don't need it as long as you have a mind like a steel trap and never forget to bring things over or do daily, weekly or at least regular back ups. You can set up a fine back up with W7, so just get a drive and go to town. Now if you want to have the software watch for and do incremental back ups then that's another issue and I like Acronis for that.

 

[essenbe]

Image software restores your entire operating system, programs and files to exactly like it was when you took the image. File and folder type backups just backup items in your libraries such as documents, photos, music.

If your hard drive dies or the OS becomes corrupted, it is much simpler to use an image and restore everything at once. Without an image you must reinstall Windows, install programs, windows settings set up email accounts, ect. If you do not have backups, you lose all of your emails, documents, photos etc.

I hope this explains the difference.

 

[Josh7]

Image software restores your entire operating system, programs and files to exactly like it was when you took the image. File and folder type backups just backup items in your libraries such as documents, photos, music.

If your hard drive dies or the OS becomes corrupted, it is much simpler to use an image and restore everything at once. Without an image you must reinstall Windows, install programs, windows settings set up email accounts, ect. If you do not have backups, you lose all of your emails, documents, photos etc.

I hope this explains the difference.

Yes, it kinda does. What does the Image save on? can you save on the back up hard drive or it has to be a CD? And...Lets say my computer dies I took a image and saved everything I get a brand new computer with the same OS and restore from back up, would it restore it to exactly the way the way I saved the image?

 

[GeneO]

Image software restores your entire operating system, programs and files to exactly like it was when you took the image. File and folder type backups just backup items in your libraries such as documents, photos, music.

If your hard drive dies or the OS becomes corrupted, it is much simpler to use an image and restore everything at once. Without an image you must reinstall Windows, install programs, windows settings set up email accounts, ect. If you do not have backups, you lose all of your emails, documents, photos etc.

I hope this explains the difference.

Yes, it kinda does. What does the Image save on? can you save on the back up hard drive or it has to be a CD? And...Lets say my computer dies I took a image and saved everything I get a brand new computer with the same OS and restore from back up, would it restore it to exactly the way the way I saved the image?

It saves to any device you specify, it doesn't have to be a CD. If your system disk dies you need these things to recover without a lot of pain:

1. A current image backup
2. A recovery disc (CD) to be able to restore the image backup

Otherwise you will need to fresh install your system, updates to it, and reinstall all of your software programs

Another option is to have another disk that you make a sector by sector copy (clone) of your system disk. Then, by a BIOS change, you can boot to this clone in place of the failed drive. This can be done by software such as Acronis True Image .

 

[essenbe]

The answer to that is yes and no. Yes it would restore the same image as it was the day you took the image. No, it probably would not work on a different computer because the image has the settings and drivers for the old computer which is probably different than the new computer. There are programs that would do that but none of the free ones that I am aware. But, if your hard drive died and you replaced the hard drive on the same computer it would do that if the hard drive was the same size or larger. It would completely restore everything.

You can save the image on an external hard drive or on DVDs. It is usually better to save it on an external. DVDs degrade and depending on the size of your backup would probably take several DVDs for one image. Most imaging programs compress the image, but depending on the size of your hard drive, the image can still be as much as 20GB or more.

 

[GeneO]

Nothing I know of would reliably let you restore an image from one computer to a different one, unless they had exactly the same hardware (esp. the chipset, and processor).

Do you really envisage such a scenario? I think it is unrealistic. The most probable failure is a disk drive failure. This is what you should plan for. For the eventuality of a replacement of computer or other major component other than a disk drive, you should make sure you keep the keys, licenses, and passwords you would need to reinstall your application software.

My backup strategy is fourfold:

1. I keep an image backup on an external disk
2. I keep a clone on an internal disk
3. I keep synced copies of my data on internal and external disks using MS Synctoy
4. I keep backup copies of all information I need to reinstall my applications from scratch on a new system

 

[whs]

Restoring an image from system A to system B is a no-go. Even if the systems were identical, you would die in the activation.

 

[essenbe]

Acronis has a program they claim will do it, but WHS is right You would never get windows to verify.

 

[GeneO]

Acronis has a program they claim will do it, but WHS is right You would never get windows to verify.

But then again, my experience with Acronis restore to the same hardware hasn't been good. I wouldn't even consider their solution for dissimilar hardware. I don't think the activations is necessarily a no-go, but here are many other things that are.

 

[Josh7]

Thank you all very much. I think I get it but...

What would be the difference of just backing up my documents, photos and other crap, but not taking Image. Could you then load that back up to a new computer? You would just get the programs back and photos and documents?

 

[whs]

Thank you all very much. I think I get it but...

What would be the difference of just backing up my documents, photos and other crap, but not taking Image. Could you then load that back up to a new computer? You would just get the programs back and photos and documents?

You would have to reinstall your system, reinstall all programs, reinstall all the Microsoft and program updates since day1, redo all the settings you did for the system and the programs, redo all your Favorites, etc. All you saved was your user data which you can put back - after 3 days of hard work.

 

[essenbe]

If you do a backup of your documents, photos music ect, and ad a hard drive die or crash you would have to reinstall windows, all programs, settings and everything. Then you can use your backup of documents, photos etc and place them back on the new install.

If you take an image of your system and restored it, it would reinstall your OS, programs, emails, documents everything exactly the way your system was the day you made the image.

An image can save you many hours of intalling programs, settings and other things. As far as which program to use -if you look over these forums you will find some people have trouble with some progrsms while others swear by it. Personally, I believe it is that some hardware set ups work well with certain hardware than others. I would suggest you try out several imaging programs and see which ones work best for you.
There are several programs you can use free. Macrium, I believe Paragon has a free version and If you have a Seagate or Western Digital internal or external drive, thos companies have free backup programs which are a scaled down versions of Acronis. Some people have very good luck wit Windows Ststem image. I would tryu out several to see which you like best. All of these free versions have limited functionability. The ones you kike, you can purchase the full version. I am sure there are other programs that I neglected to mention.

That is the best info I can give on the difference in file backups and imagr backups. WHS is an expert om Macrium and has done many video tutorials on how to use them

 

[pparks1]

Hey guys,

You can create a machine and then make an image of it and then later put that image onto a machine with different hardware. Of course, from an activation standpoint, you would have to have a retail copy of Windows so that you can activate this copy onto the new machine.

The key here is to run "sysprep" from Microsoft, but to use the GENERALIZE option. Then, once the machine is shut down, grab the image from a boot version of your imaging software of choice. The generalize option removes the system-specific-data from the system. (What is Sysprep?). Thus, when you restore this image and boot the machine the first time, it will run through more of an "install", then a mini-setup. I can assure you that it works going from one hardware variety to another, as I've used this method at work to move images from Dell XYZ to Dell 123 when a new make and model comes out.

Note: 1 suggestion. Before you run "sysprep" on your machine...take an image. Reason being, sysprep WILL put your actual workstation into the same state of your newly formed image. Meaning, it will boot up, install again...and would require ACTIVATION. All of your installed applications and data would still be there, but you probably don't want to reactivate your actual machine.

So, image it. Then sysprep it, image it again, then restore your first image to get you back to the machine working and activated. Keep that second image on some media that you can use down the road if you ever find yourself building a new machine.

Hopefully that makes sense, if not, please give me a holler.

 

[Josh7]

Wait...so Back up just on a External harddrive doesn't save programs, just photos, documents? Since I don't have a external I tried going to save a backup just to see what it did. It shows that I can back up on my DVD-RW drive. I think thats kind of stupid the whole point of a back up is so if you loose it your have it if you back up on the same drive thats so pointless. I'm still kind if confused. What exactly does a external hard drive back up?

 

[NoN]

Wait...so Back up just on a External harddrive doesn't save programs, just photos, documents? Since I don't have a external I tried going to save a backup just to see what it did. It shows that I can back up on my DVD-RW drive. I think thats kind of stupid the whole point of a back up is so if you loose it your have it if you back up on the same drive thats so pointless. I'm still kind if confused. What exactly does a external hard drive back up?

There's a difference between DATA and Programs, Data is your personal files and what an external drive do is to save your personal data files. When you'll plug this external hd, you'll be able to pick them up and put it back in the machine.

Windows 7 permit to do backup of personal files with it's own program.

You can use a 3rd party like "Seagate Manager" (as an exemple) for Seagate Hdd to do it or "WDSync" for Western digital HDD to replace over the native Windows 7 backup.

Or you can "Drag & Drop" or "Copy or Move" the personal Data files from one HDD to another external HDD.

After if you want to reinstall windows 7 with all the programs from an image...that's another story.

"Backup" & "Image" are two different things!!