Can I update to a 1.5 TB internal HDD on a 6 year old Dell xps9000

AddRAM said:

Itaregid said:

AddRAM said:

and you are not supposed to be storing data on C anyway.

Sure you can. The truth is, the vast majority of the 1.5 Billion Windows computers out there only have one drive with one partition and it works just fine.

A second drive is something extra most don't have, or need for that matter. You still need to keep backups. In reality, if you have two drives, you have twice the chance for a drive failure!

I didn`t say you can`t, I said you shouldn`t, why am I repeating myself ?

Your data should at least be stored on another partition if you only have 1 drive, but yes, most people don`t know any better.

You can have your data on the C: drive but it makes it harder to backup since you would be limited to cloning or, even better, imaging. However, if the data is on a separate drive or partition, one can use a far more efficient folder/file syncing program to back up the data, which is why I recommend putting data on a separate drive or partition, and use imaging for the system files on the C: partition.

Well, it's obvious to me we all agree on doing backups in one fashion or another.
That is good.
We do have different methods but we do it.

Because it's always possible for a hard drive or SSD can die, I'm fully believe separate drives is the proper way to do backups.
I think we all also know that many don't do that and millions don't even know they should or can.
The price of hard drives and SSD's makes a separate drive very possible.
The problem is that the masses for what ever foolish reason don't read this forum.

Lady Fitzgerald has always promoted backups done often. She seems to have a passion for it.

I'm a luck person. I have very little to backup. My main reason is if Windows 7 takes a dump by some goofy Microsoft Updated destroys things. I can just pop in a Clone and be on my way to happy computing. In todays computing world the possibility of Ransom ware is very realistic.
Another good reason for backups and Clones.

I can think of NO good reason not to back up to a external drive in some fashion.

What keeps me puzzled; people will pay a small fortune for games and not spend $100.00 or so to protect those games with backups. They will pay $1000.00 for a video card to play those games and yet, no backups.
My 3 brain cells are just not understand this.

Hopefully some forum passer by will read this thread and start backup.

Jack

Itaregid said:

AddRAM said:

I didn`t say you can`t, I said you shouldn`t, why am I repeating myself ?

Your data should at least be stored on another partition if you only have 1 drive, but yes, most people don`t know any better.

Having your data on a separate partition offers no better security than in the same partition. If anything, the more partitions you have, the greater the chances of partition table corruption. And multiple partitions can increase drive "thrashing" too as the R/W head bounces all over the place. Multiple partitions increases convenience, not data security or integrity.

And it is not a matter of users not knowing better. If what you claim was necessary, Microsoft would have Windows automatically create another partition during installation and put My Documents and other user folders on that other partition. This would be a simple feat. But it is not necessary...

I agree having too many partitions is a bad thing. Partitions should not be used for data organization. However, having data on a different partition than C: allows one to use two different methods of backing up for increased efficiency. Just because something isn't the way MS originally set something up doesn't necessarily mean that something isn't better.

Itaregid said:

...

Lady Fitzgerald said:

You can have your data on the C: drive but it makes it harder to backup since you would be limited to cloning or, even better, imaging.

Not at all! It is extremely simple to simply drag and drop a backup copy of the Documents and Program Files folders to a backup location. This can easily be a secondary drive in the same computer, or to DVD, external drive, or as in my case, my old repurposed XP system I turned into a NAS down in the basement. This XP NAS is full of drives just for this purpose. But because it is XP, I blocked its internet access in my router. But all my computers can access it just fine.

And virtually every backup program, including Windows own lets you select which folders you want to backup too. In Windows 10, "File History" does an excellent job of this automatically (every hour by default for changed files, as a matter of fact). And it is a simple step to set the backup location to a secondary drive, as I have done...

While dragging and dropping the Documents folder to the backup drive is a simple way to update a backup, it's inefficient. Unless you specify to ignore duplicates, you will be writing the entire folder to the backup drive every time you update a backup. And even if you do specify to ignore duplicates, you will not be able to get any versioning (keeping earlier versions of a file and deleted files) and the process will take longer. I've found using a folder/file syncing program, such as FreeFileSync (there are other equally good ones) simplifies the process and sends deleted earlier versions of a file to either a drive or a folder (drives are treated as though they are a folder). I'm using Win 7 (that and Office 2010 are the last MS products I'm going to use) so the folder/file syncing program is necessary for what I do. Once set up, using it is very simple, though.

Also, it is a very bad idea to use a drive inside the computer for a backup. If the computer gets stolen, infected, fried from a surge or spike that blows through any surge protection you have (it happens; a nearby lightning strike on the mains will do it), the house burns down or floods, etc. (don't forget user error; it happens to the best) your backup will go with it. For a backup to be secure, it has to be kept disconnected and separate from the computer.

Itaregid said:

...This (my main computer) has an 850 Pro SSD as my primary drive and an 850 EVO as the secondary. W10, all my programs and all my data files are on C. D drive houses backups of C drive, "File History" files, my Downloads folder, and 3,727 of my favorite tunes I copied from my 600+ CD collection. I also regularly backup folders and full images to that XP NAS, then once a month I swap out the backup at the bank. So I don't have as many layers of backups as you, but I do have a safe amount, IMO. Oh, and I regularly backup my encrypted password safe database to my notebook too.

And BTW, I'm a senior citizen too - soon to have my first great-grandchild.

No fair! I don't have the right plumbing for that kind of contest! Congrats on the soon to be new great-grandchild!

Layback Bear said:

...Lady Fitzgerald has always promoted backups done often. She seems to have a passion for it...

LOL! Jack, the reason for my passion is I do have a lot data that would be time consuming, expensive, and/or impossible to replace. The reason I have duplicate backup drives in each location is even a backup drive can fail. Also, a backup drive is vulnerable to corruption, infection, human error, etc. while it is being updated or even while just connected to the computer. The second backup is a backup to the backup.

I had a drive become corrupted in my computer once. How? Who knows? What I do know is I didn't find out until I tried to update a backup and the backup failed, lunching the backup drive. This happened on a Saturday morning. If I didn't have that second backup handy, I would have been stuck with a corrupted drive I couldn't trust (even though I could still access the data on it) and no onsite backup until I could get to my credit union the following Monday, retrieve the offsite backup drive, and restore both the onsite backup and the drive in the computer.

But, then I would have still been missing the files that had been added or changed since I put the offsite backup in my credit union safe deposit box. That is why I also have a cloud backup (Carbonite.com). It serves as another offsite backup. However, retrieving all the data would take weeks (and make my ISP very unhappy). To avoid that, I can use the offsite drive to recover most of my data, then retrieve the rest from Carbonite.

In this particular instance, if I hadn't had the second onsite backup, I would have had to wait until Monday to retrieve it, pray fervently that that drive didn't fail before I finished recovery, then wait on Carbonite to downloads the remaining files to my computer (at least it would have been only day or two instead of weeks).

However, I did have that second onsite backup so I was able to recover in only three hours instead of almost a week plus, if something went wrong again (stuff happens; I believe in Murphy's Law, especially since I'm part Irish), I still would have the offsite backups and Carbonite to fall back on.

Does everyone need as much redundancy as I have. Heck no! Everyone has different needs. Many people don't keep any important data on their computers and can just reinstall their OS and programs if things go south so they wouldn't need any backups as long as they had whatever was needed to rebuild the OS and reinstall their programs. Others, such as you, just don't have all that much on their computer and a simpler scheme would be more practical. Also, not everyone can afford to have as many backup drives as I do (I have to eat a lot of mustard sandwiches to afforn mine). For them, even a single onsite backup will still beat the holy hairy heck out of no backup at all!

Responses in bold (yes, I'm lazy; it's also been a long day that started at midnight and included a 400 mile drive).

Itaregid said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

While dragging and dropping the Documents folder to the backup drive is a simple way to update a backup, it's inefficient. Unless you specify to ignore duplicates, you will be writing the entire folder to the backup drive every time you update a backup.

Not sure how it is inefficient. It is really quick and easy. And if you drag and drop the entire folder to the same place, there will be no duplicates - except what might already be in the source Documents folder.

Just for gee whizzes, I went to my Documents folder on c drive, right click and select copy. Then I went to my d drive/backup folder, right click and paste. It took 8 seconds to copy 1,515 files in 116 folders and 649MB of data. No dups. Now if I had chosen a different folder name, then sure, there would have been a bunch of dups.

I'm missing something here. Are you replacing the previous copy and paste backup?

Just because something isn't the way MS originally set something up doesn't necessarily mean that something isn't better.

I agree. But it also doesn't mean something else is needed. For example, we don't need a 3rd party defragger because the one is Windows is good enough. We don't need a 3rd party firewall because the one in Windows is good enough. Many of the basic tools in Windows work just fine without 3rd party alternatives or user tweaking - this is more and more true with the latest versions of Windows.

I agree Windows defragger (since XP) is good enough. A third party firewall is far easier for me to manage, especially for outgoing, than Windows (at least for Win 7)

Also, it is a very bad idea to use a drive inside the computer for a backup.

I see no problem with that AS LONG AS it is not your only backup - specifically for the reasons you noted. You must have multiple layers of backups for a robust and failsafe and foolproof backup solution. But there's no reason the first level cannot be a secondary (or tertiary) drive in the same computer.

Truth be told, I save my images of my C: drive on my E: data drive for convenience if I ever have to restore to an earlier date. However, the E: drive gets multiple backups so the C: drive also gets multiple backups. What I'm lambasting is the practice of using an internal drive for an only backup or as the only onsite backup and an external offsite backup.

Again. replies in bold (my tired hurts).

Itaregid said:

I'm missing something here. Are you replacing the previous copy and paste backup?

Sure! I have no need to keep making more and more copies. If I need to go further back in time, I can pull out an older full backup from the backup NAS sever where I have image files going back many months (years, actually).

While that works, it does take up more room, especially if you have large amounts of data and/or want more versioning than that is likely to provide.

I only have images of my C: drive. I have Macrium Reflect set to automagically keep only the previous eight weeks. I also keep the first image of every month (I manually copy those over to another folder).

A folder/file syncing program, when set to Mirror (not the same as RAID 1) will give you essentially a clone of your data drive or partition. It compares the source and destination drives, partitions, and/or folders (depending how you set it up), then copies to or deletes from the destination as needed to make it the same as the source. You can also set it to send deleted files to a versioning drive or folder. The process is simpler, takes less time, and takes up far less space.

I agree Windows defragger (since XP) is good enough. A third party firewall is far easier for me to manage, especially for outgoing, than Windows (at least for Win 7)

What's there to manage? If you are the only user of your computer and you know what programs are installed, there's nothing to manage. For this reason, the integrated Windows Firewall works great. And because it is integrated, it goes up way early in the boot process - especially critical especially when installing Windows anew. And I am even a strong proponent of Windows Defender in W8 and W10 (MSE in W7) as a suitable anti-malware solution. That said, I also use MBAM but I believe regardless your anti-malware solution of choice, you should always have a secondary scanner just to make sure nothing sneaked by the primary.

You don't need an Abrams Tank to be safe while driving about. You just need a properly maintained basic car that is kept current, and you must drive defensively - same as must do in the tank.

Actually, it's more like comparing an F150 to a Ford Focus rather than a tank. We all have lapses in our judgment so it's nice to have an "extra pair of eyes" watching out.

I'm more concerned about monitoring and regulating outbound transmissions, such as programs unnecessarily calling home. I use ZoneAlarm's free firewall. It is much easier to mange than win 7's firewall. Once Zone Alarm has been "trained" (it takes a month or two), I see very few popups.

I switched to MSE in 2009 when W7 came out, then Windows Defender with W8 and now W10 on all my systems. And except for a few PUPs, MBAM has never found anything WD (or me) ever let past. That said, I am not "click happy" on unsolicited downloads, attachments, links and popups either. But then that does not matter which security program you use either. And for the records, the PUPs MBAM found were wanted anyway.

I've had problems with MSE so I have been using AVAST free (although it's becoming a bit bloated; I'm considering trying Panda Cloud). I also use Super AntiSpyware free and MBAM Premium (I have four lifetime licenses)

What I'm lambasting is the practice of using an internal drive for an only backup or as the only onsite backup and an external offsite backup.

I agree 100%. But that applies to external drives kept next to your computer too. A fire, flood, or thief it likely to grab that as well.

And that is why you keep them out of sight of the computer—they are less likely to be seen or even recognized as being part of the computer system. Also, it's one reason why you should have offsite backups.