Moving backups an Image to off site location

[Pantz]

hello everyone, i have had so much help here, i thought i would ask another question concerning backup an image's. i have 2 systems, a main system (320Gigs system partiton) and a upgraded older system (50Gigs system partition) both running windows 7. i have created a backup and image of both machine to my External drive, now i have a Laptop (also W70 with 110 Gigs of space left, also i have 2 partition of 320 gigs on my main machine available, and 400Gigs of unallocated space left on my upgraded older system, my Ext drive is a 1TB drive which now holds both backup an images of both machines, plus music an movies, (and other misc stuff) which is now at 290gigs ( these 1TB drives are so small, LOL ) what i am trying to do is free up space on the ext drive, by "moving" the backup an images to either the upgraded machine, or to the available partitions that i have on the main machine. ( hope this makes sense.)
looking at the backups
{i see the main machine has 95Gigs as an image file and 137gigs of data, and the updated machine has a 235 mb as an image and 8gigs of data}. what i am trying to do is move both images to a location where they will be safe,
thanks in advance.

 

[brady]

What app did you create the images with? Are you asking for off site locations or just simply how to keep your data safe?

 

[Pantz]

i used windows backup to create the images, and how to keep my data safe

 

[brady]

Well to be honest, if something happens to your computer to where you'll need a new hard drive or another piece of hardware replaced the windows backups won't reinstall without major problems... Windows backup, in my opinion, is a heartache waiting to happen...

But for time sake, the external drives can be stored virtually anywhere. I personally have an image set in cloud environment and on external drives. I keep my external drive in a fireproof safe with my wife's jewelry.

 

[Pantz]

i also have backup sets and images done with Aronics, since i have quite a bit of space between my 2 PC and laptop, i was looking for a place to keep both set, without worrying about them.

 

[whs]

For starters, let me ask about your images. Both system images (95GB and 235MB sound strange). Those are not common image sizes. The one is much bigger than usual (unless there is also a lot of data on that partition) and the other is too small for a system image. The 137GB of data is possible if you have that much data.
Now to your question. Parking images upstream is possible, but given the size, it will take an awful long time to upload them. I suggest you buy another external drive (best e.g. a 500GB USB powered 2.5" drive) to where you image occasionally and store that in a safe place. It is a good practice to alter the media for imaging because it is unlikely that several disks fail at the same time. I use 3 different disks of which one is always disconnected when the image is complete.
Last point - using the Win7 imaging is possible but risky. There have been a lot of reports about trouble with the facility (there have also been reports where people have used it successfully). I have used several programs for imaging but found that free Macrium is the easiest, fastest, least complex, makes small images and is 100% reliable. I have recovered XP, Vista and Win7 systems already more than a dozen times without incident. And you can mount the images if you want to recover only a few files. That is very difficult with the Win7 images - it is possible, but you have to jump thru many hoops.

 

[brady]

Hey whs, I do not mean to hijack this thread but I am curious about the free macrium... Do you sysprep prior to imaging with macrium?

as for the TS: Enable the highest possible compression when your basically 'snap shotting' the drives... unless you can simply image the os partition

 

[karlsnooks]

I've done much and many backups using Windows Backup and Restore, using ImageX, using DISM, using VHD files -- all using Microsoft software.

I've not encountered problem 1.

I've not used, but you may well find that RoboCopy willl be sufficient for a good bit of your needs. Go to a command prompt and type RoboCopy /?

Another option to consider is SyncToy
SyncToy 2.1

Brief Description

SyncToy 2.1 is a free application that synchronizes files and folders between locations. Typical uses include sharing files, such as photos, with other computers and creating backup copies of files and folders.

Download details: SyncToy 2.1

 

[Pantz]

ok i may have mixed up the image an data sizes, lookin in my WindowsImageBackup location, i have 2 folders
MAIN PC and UPDATED PC ( not the real names) main PC folder size is 129Gigs, updated PC folder is 8Gigs. i think my best bet is to buy a EXT HD and use it just for backin up images and data from both machines?.

 

[whs]

Hey whs, I do not mean to hijack this thread but I am curious about the free macrium... Do you sysprep prior to imaging with macrium?

as for the TS: Enable the highest possible compression when your basically 'snap shotting' the drives... unless you can simply image the os partition

I am not sure what you mean by "sysprep". There is nothing special you have to do. It is dead simple. After you installed and run it the first time you do the following:

1. You burn your recovery CD which contails the recovery program under Linux control (use the Linux version) - this you do only once, takes a couple of minutes.
2. You define a folder (e.g. Macrium images) on the disk/partition to where you want to image. An external disk is recommended but you can also use a drive/partition on your internal HDD (is faster but more risky).
3. You define your image with the wizard (which creates an xml file for later use).
4. You take your first image. Expect about 55-60% of the size of the imaged partition in image size with standard compression.

For your subsequent images, you have 2 options:

1. Set the xml file on a schedule. Just right click on it and go to schedule.
2. Run it "by hand". For that you highlight the xml file and click on the cog wheel and off you go.

You can make as many definitions (xml files) as you like - from different partitions or to different disks. I have about half a dozen because I image from several partitions (sometimes single, sometimes combined to different output disks).

Here is a little tutorial I made that may help: http://www.sevenforums.com/software/43219-image-your-system-free-macrium.html