Acronis TI advice

scook94 · Mar 06, 2008, 23:14:40

Following an unfortunate incident with Carol's laptop I decided to get myself a copy, since I know a lot of you like this program.

I'm just wondering how you use it for backups and how you would use it for recovery? I created the Boot CD and assumed that I would be able to boot from it and backup my C: drive onto my E: drive, but for some reason it can't see the E: drive.

Would you just use the program from within the OS to backup? I guess doing it this way you'd have to get a working OS after a failure in order to restore from this type of backup?

TIA, Steven.

Simon · Mar 06, 2008, 23:17:33

Out of my league, Steven. Rik is the backup king round here!

Rik · Mar 07, 2008, 00:57:49

Hi Steve

I backup onto my fourth internal HD, I then copy that to two external HDs. All three copies can be seen when I boot with the Acronis CD, so I just select the fastest drive available (obviously, that's normally the internal). It's worth remembers that drive letters change with the TI boot disk, so I strongly recommend you use labels to help identify which is which.

What type of drives are C & E for you?

I do backup from within Windows, btw.

scook94 · Mar 07, 2008, 08:56:44

Rik, they are "both" SATA drives, however C: is actually 2 drives on Raid 0 while E: is just a normal drive.

I guess at the end of the day it doesn't really matter so long as I can restore my C: drive should it fail. It'll just mean having to load windows before I can do that. I guess I should keep a copy of Acronis in several places as well as the license information.

I haven't tried it on Carol's laptop yet though but if I can use the boot CD on her's I'll be happy enough.

Ray · Mar 07, 2008, 09:08:43

It would also be worth you reading through the Beginners Guides on the official Acronis Support Forum here if you haven't already done so, there is a lot of very helpful information available on this forum.

I've always found TrueImage to be an excellent Imaging and backup programme that does what it says, but it can sometimes take a while to understand fully and to get it working how you want it to.

Gary · Mar 07, 2008, 09:10:19

Quote from: Rik on Mar 07, 2008, 00:57:49
Hi Steve

I backup onto my fourth internal HD, I then copy that to two external HDs. All three copies can be seen when I boot with the Acronis CD, so I just select the fastest drive available (obviously, that's normally the internal). It's worth remembers that drive letters change with the TI boot disk, so I strongly recommend you use labels to help identify which is which.

What type of drives are C & E for you?

I do backup from within Windows, btw.

Are they firewire or usb external drives , Rik I could never get TI to see my firewire drives for some reason

Rik · Mar 07, 2008, 09:30:18

USB, Gary. I don't think TI has any Firewire drivers.

Rik · Mar 07, 2008, 09:32:17

Quote from: scook94 on Mar 07, 2008, 08:56:44
Rik, they are "both" SATA drives, however C: is actually 2 drives on Raid 0 while E: is just a normal drive.

That's odd. It would be well worth your while having a word with Acronis support, Steve, there's a range of switches that might help. I can see all my SATA (4) drives and USB (3) drives when I boot from the CD (plus the CD, of course).

Gary · Mar 07, 2008, 09:32:31

Quote from: Rik on Mar 07, 2008, 09:30:18
USB, Gary. I don't think TI has any Firewire drivers.

I use Firewire drives for the faster movement of consistently big files like my vids and music which are over 65GB each, I'll have to get a USB one for TI

Rik · Mar 07, 2008, 09:38:42

Or e-SATA?

Gary · Mar 07, 2008, 09:43:17

Quote from: Rik on Mar 07, 2008, 09:38:42
Or e-SATA?

very true, thing is I really really have to upgrade pc this year Rik, I keep putting it off I should have done it last year, and kept changing my mind as to what I wanted as you know

so for now some lacie USB drives would stack well and be quite cheap, I don't want to start going e-SATA till I have in my hands the machine I finally decide I will get, which I will allow for greater internal storage as well

Rik · Mar 07, 2008, 09:49:00

I've never regretted moving to four HDs on this machine, Gary. Two superfast 80GB for OS and Apps, two fast 750GB for storage. Makes a world of difference to the overall performance of the machine.

Gary · Mar 07, 2008, 09:53:57

Quote from: Rik on Mar 07, 2008, 09:49:00
I've never regretted moving to four HDs on this machine, Gary. Two superfast 80GB for OS and Apps, two fast 750GB for storage. Makes a world of difference to the overall performance of the machine.

I was looking at a machine with two perpendicular recording 750Gb drives and a couple of 150 GB Raptors Rik, Justina is finally seeing it my way now, think that's just to shut me up though

Rik · Mar 07, 2008, 09:54:50

That's basically what I have, Gary, though I went for the smaller Raptors.

Gary · Mar 07, 2008, 09:59:35

Quote from: Rik on Mar 07, 2008, 09:54:50
That's basically what I have, Gary, though I went for the smaller Raptors.

with the price dropping of harddrives the 150's are no longer that expensive otherwise I would have gone for the 80's still waiting for my cpu to hit the supplier though, they are still using the QX6850 and I want the QX9650, I hate trying to be patient

Rik · Mar 07, 2008, 10:01:41

I went for 80s because that's all I needed for my arrangement, Gary. They do add to machine performance, though...

Noreen · Mar 07, 2008, 10:03:49

I use TI (still using v9) to make a full HD image onto an external Maxtor USB drive, I do this monthly. I keep three full backups although this is from habit rather than for a specific reason. I always validate the backup by using the TI Boot CD and restarting the computer.

You might like to read this thread. http://www.idnetters.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=5801.0

Gary · Mar 07, 2008, 10:05:15

Quote from: Rik on Mar 07, 2008, 10:01:41
I went for 80s because that's all I needed for my arrangement, Gary. They do add to machine performance, though...

A friend has raptors in his and I noticed the difference Rik, since I'll be going all vista on myself sadly fast drives are a good idea, oh and I'm waiting for SP1 to be included as well, not that it seems to make a damn of difference just introduce more application and driver issues sadly, saying that I can always put my XP disc on it

scook94 · Apr 06, 2008, 10:06:03

Another quick question. Do you guys who use Acronis use differential, incremental or create a new full backup when you run your scheduled backups?

Rik · Apr 06, 2008, 10:15:06

I do a full backup every time - disk space is cheap and it makes life much easier if you need to use it.

Steve · Apr 06, 2008, 10:23:39

Absolutely. I always create a full backup earlier on with my basic suite of programs. You can always pull data off subsequent backups when required. I see no point in restoring a backup that may contain problems

scook94 · Apr 06, 2008, 12:05:04

Ok thanks, had been doing differential to save on the time it takes, but I'll maybe change that to full and keep the last 2 full backups for each machine.

Rik · Apr 06, 2008, 12:13:55

What I do, Steve, is to keep the last couple or so to hand, but I keep a full set on a spare USB drive I have for the purpose, so I can restore the drive all the way back to it's delivered state if I ever wanted to.