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Entire PC back ups

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I have a laptop with  windows 7 Home Premium  and Acronis  TI 2015 installed and working fine

I just successfully created an "entire PC " back up to an  external HDD

I assume  I can update this back up?

My other option , I could periodically create "entire PC" updates . ( I have several spare external HDD's)

My question is there a best practice ie update the original back up or periodically make new ones?

Sorry if it looks like overkill but I have endured a hard drive failure. never again!! 

Thanks

peter

 

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Peter:

Aha, another user who believes in backing up periodically! Welcome to the club. It seems to only take one incident of hard disk failure to become a convert. That happened to me a dozen years ago and I haven't lost a single file since then after adopting a backup strategy and sticking to it.

If you have the disk storage, the simplest method is to make periodic "entire PC" updates. You could reduce the storage requirements by doing incremental or differential backups but it's not worth the risk in my opinion. Since you're using Windows 7, make sure that you have "Previous Versions" enabled so that you can retrieve an earlier version of a file that you change. This will protect you against one of the stupid mistakes that I make frequently - using a document as a template to create a new document, then choosing "Save" instead of "Save As", which wipes out your original document. Microsoft's "Previous Versions" can be your first level of protection.

Then use TI 2015 to make periodic "entire PC" backups to your external disk(s). This is your second level of protection. You should have more than one external disk because they can fail too.

Finally, rotate the disks that you use for backup between your house and a secure site off-premises. This is your third level of protection against loss of your backups due to fire, flood, or theft.

In the end, you need to develop a strategy that lets you sleep at night because you have minimized the chances of losing data due to whatever reason.

Mark,

 

Thanks for speedy reply with usefull content.   I intend to start periodic series of "entire PC' backups to separate ext HDD's.

I can format and re use drives with older back up versions.

I will hold back from enabling previous versions until I have established a pattern of entire PC back ups.

Some time ago I had a computer issue of losing disk  space  . It took a computer repair shop some time and a few dollars to learn that accumulating   copies of "previous versions "fies were the culprit.  

BTW do you recommend I upgrade to Acronis 2017 from 2015?

 

Again many thanks.  

Peter:

You can control the amount of storage space used by Previous Versions. The attached picture shows where the setting is located.

Upgrading is up to you. The 2017 version has added a lot of new features. If any of them look useful then that might sway your decision.

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