windows backup taking 20 hrs so far.

[Chip Phillips]

I have been backing up with Windows 7 Backup and am at 39% and it's been about 20 hrs. I am backing up 450 gigs onto a WD Elements 2 TB external drive. I backed up this info the other day (drag and drop) and it took 6 hrs. Why is it taking so long with Windows Backup? At this rate it will take 2 days to backup my system. Chip

 

[mjf]

Can you give some idea what your data is ... number, size of individual files etc.
But anyway 450GB is a LOT of data and I find Windows file/folder backup (not imaging) slow at the best of times.
For that amount of data I'd be looking for some other backup utility. Someone else may have specific software suggestions.

 

[Chip Phillips]

Thanks for the response mjf. Most of my data is image files (CR2, PSD, and Tiff), and some are 1 gig each or more. Any suggestions on what utility might be good for this?

 

[mjf]

The CR2 raws I would have expected to be say 15MB. The psd and Tiffs I would expect to be a lot bigger depending on number of layers. But 1GB ???
Do you want your backups to be synchronized with the likes of Adobe Lightroom, photoshop ? Some on the forum use SyncToy but I cannot comment on it's suitability speedwise.

If are wanting more archive style backup then I'd be looking at creating a number of images. A bit of a guess but I'd say about 4hours total to image 450GB.
Incremental imaging could be worthwhile. "Acronis" may be worth a look.

I would have thought the photo forums would have suggestions more aligned to your specific need?

 

[richnrockville]

I also recommend Acronis image backup. I have used it on 400-500 gig drives and it does take a bit
of time but still works great. If your a user group member, the ugr.com store will give you a good discount
on it. I don't have any financial interest but just like the prices and the products.

Rich

 

[madtownidiot]

Try separating your media and personal files from windows first. Most problems which would require restoring from a backup involve the system partition, so keeping any valuable files on the same HDD as windows means risking a total loss in the event of a HDD failure. I have over 4TB of files I can't afford to lose, but the time it would take windows to compress all that into a backup file would not be worth it. Window backup (and just about everything else in windows) works better if you separate your media and personal files from windows and your programs by saving everything to a different partition or hard drive, and then only backup the system partition. Backing up an operating system and 25GB worth of programs takes me about a half hour, and restoring them takes even less time.

 

[Maxxwire]

Chip- Never underestimate the ability of a USB backup drive to slow file backups way down. I have two 1 TB Western Digital drives I use for backpup and neither one can muster a transfer rate of over much over 25 MBps over the USB interface! This is one of the main reasons why for just $40 more than the WD dirve cost I recently purchased a LaCie Hard Disk MAX 2TB Quadra eSATA Raid 0 Drive...

Using the eSATA interface backups now take a fraction of the time that they used to at transfer speeds in excess of 100 MBps...

~Maxx~

 

[mjf]

As an amateur photographer I've been thinking a little more about this type of "backup" problem.
A lot depends on your photographic workflow. But I feel a two pronged solution may be called for. This is how I might do it:
(1) For mass archive backup. Break your photographic data into logical components' maybe date based. Keep more than one image on more than one HDD. I'd also be looking at incremental imaging.
(2) For work in progress I could use synchonised backup. If your a pro photographer you would be spending hours maybe editing image layers in Photoshop. Synchronization and very regular (more than once a day) backing up would be a good idea. For a wedding assignment, a bride hates bad news. Once the assignment is complete it can be added to the image archive. Have a look at SyncToy.