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looking for help on best backup strategy

Thread needs solution

Hi all,

I'd appreciate any help on selecting a good backup strategy.

I have 5 computers to backup. new applications are rarely installed, and all 5 are generally used to collect data. 2 of the 5 collect weekly, and the other 3 monthly.

Machines 1 and 2 are critical, so I have a separate drive to install that can hold a mirror of the existing drive.

I was thinking about this plan;

machines 1,2, downtime and applications are critical

  • create a mirror drive and store away.
  • Perform weekly backups of the data from the original drive to a backup drive
  • If the original drive fails, install the mirror and restore the latest backup taken from the original drive to it, so the data is current.
  • possibly also create an image as well, just in case the mirrors fail to boot up.

Question; can I restore a backup from the origonal drive to the installed mirror?

 

machines 3,4,5.

Somewhat similiar, instead of a mirror, create an image on a backup drive. Then if the main drive fails, install the image to a new drive and then restore the latest backup to to the restored image to the data current.

Same Question; can I restore a backup from the origonal drive to the installed (restored) image?

I'll also stored the images and backups to the cloud as an offsite

is this the best approach?

thanks

derek

 

 

0 Users found this helpful

Derek, welcome to these user forums.

Please have a browse around the Best Practices for data protection Forum which may have answers / suggestions for many of the questions that you have, including advice on backup strategies etc.

When you write about creating a mirror drive - in Acronis speak this would equate to cloning your current OS drive to a second drive to make an identical copy of that source drive (identical at that specific point in time).   The key issue about using cloning is that this has to be performed completely offline from Windows, so will require downtime for the systems where you will do this.

I would recommend reading post: 128231: [IMPORTANT] CLONING - How NOT to do this!!! before even attempting to use cloning as it may save you a lot of time and problems.

Using Acronis Backup instead of using cloning is the recommended method we would advise, as this has a number of benefits which include being able to be performed while the source system is active in Windows, with no downtime needed and can be run on a scheduled basis and also can be repeated to multiple different backup storage locations, including Cloud or NAS etc.

The companion to Acronis Backup is Acronis Recovery (or Restore) which can be used to create a new OS drive with all your OS, Programs / Applications and Data that is as up to date as the latest available Backup made.

With having multiple systems to protect, i.e. your 5 systems, you could use one of the less critical / less used systems to perform the Recovery of Backup data to a new / replacement disk drive that would then be installed in place of a failing drive in one of the other systems, thus achieving the minimal downtime for that other system.

All of the above is possible but as with any such scheme, you would need to both implement the Backup schedule of activities on all the systems to be protected, and also test the ability of the software and yourself in performing the Recovery process, to prove that all would work as intended, and that you can document the process for when it might be needed.

Steve Smith wrote:

Derek, welcome to these user forums.

Please have a browse around the Best Practices for data protection Forum which may have answers / suggestions for many of the questions that you have, including advice on backup strategies etc.

When you write about creating a mirror drive - in Acronis speak this would equate to cloning your current OS drive to a second drive to make an identical copy of that source drive (identical at that specific point in time).   The key issue about using cloning is that this has to be performed completely offline from Windows, so will require downtime for the systems where you will do this.

I would recommend reading post: 128231: [IMPORTANT] CLONING - How NOT to do this!!! before even attempting to use cloning as it may save you a lot of time and problems.

Using Acronis Backup instead of using cloning is the recommended method we would advise, as this has a number of benefits which include being able to be performed while the source system is active in Windows, with no downtime needed and can be run on a scheduled basis and also can be repeated to multiple different backup storage locations, including Cloud or NAS etc.

The companion to Acronis Backup is Acronis Recovery (or Restore) which can be used to create a new OS drive with all your OS, Programs / Applications and Data that is as up to date as the latest available Backup made.

With having multiple systems to protect, i.e. your 5 systems, you could use one of the less critical / less used systems to perform the Recovery of Backup data to a new / replacement disk drive that would then be installed in place of a failing drive in one of the other systems, thus achieving the minimal downtime for that other system.

All of the above is possible but as with any such scheme, you would need to both implement the Backup schedule of activities on all the systems to be protected, and also test the ability of the software and yourself in performing the Recovery process, to prove that all would work as intended, and that you can document the process for when it might be needed.

Steve Smith wrote:

Derek, welcome to these user forums.

Thanks for the response, I added a few comments and questions below

Please have a browse around the Best Practices for data protection Forum which may have answers / suggestions for many of the questions that you have, including advice on backup strategies etc.

derek; Will do

 

When you write about creating a mirror drive - in Acronis speak this would equate to cloning your current OS drive to a second drive to make an identical copy of that source drive (identical at that specific point in time).   The key issue about using cloning is that this has to be performed completely offline from Windows, so will require downtime for the systems where you will do this.

derek; sorry, should have use the term clone vs mirror, wrt acronis terminiogy.

I'm Ok with  machine downtime to perform the clone. While the 2 machines are critical, they have 20-50% downtime on any given week. What I mean by critcal is that, if a drive was to crash, I want to be able to get it up and running with a new drive within a day, (minimiising actual down 'time'), but also, I want to be sure I have an exact copy of the drive, so that I a drive ready to go with all the installed applications and drivers on it , as I do not want to have to re-install them, or may not even be able to get a copy of them.

 

Using Acronis Backup instead of using cloning is the recommended method we would advise, as this has a number of benefits which include being able to be performed while the source system is active in Windows, with no downtime needed and can be run on a scheduled basis and also can be repeated to multiple different backup storage locations, including Cloud or NAS etc.

derek; yes, understand, I was planning on supplementing my clone with a weekly backup. The clone getting me up and running with all installed drivers and applications, and the data backup to restore the data that was generated between the time of the clone and the most recent backup.

The companion to Acronis Backup is Acronis Recovery (or Restore) which can be used to create a new OS drive with all your OS, Programs / Applications and Data that is as up to date as the latest available Backup made.

derek; Is this a separate application that I need to purchase, or is in inlcuded with 'Acronis backup'

With having multiple systems to protect, i.e. your 5 systems, you could use one of the less critical / less used systems to perform the Recovery of Backup data to a new / replacement disk drive that would then be installed in place of a failing drive in one of the other systems, thus achieving the minimal downtime for that other system.

derek; yes, i agree,

All of the above is possible but as with any such scheme, you would need to both implement the Backup schedule of activities on all the systems to be protected, and also test the ability of the software and yourself in performing the Recovery process, to prove that all would work as intended, and that you can document the process for when it might be needed.

 

thanks

 

Derek, just to clarify, Acronis True Image Home is the name of the product, where the functions of the product include the ability to Clone, Backup, Recover / Restore as well as create the bootable Rescue Media needed to do this in a bare-metal scenario / also used for working completely offline to Windows.

Thanks

other than the fact a clone is a one shot deal (no increment backups), and takes up a whole drive, with the the trade off being the only down time is that of the time it takes to install and switchto the cloned drive, and it won't include any 'new' data, is there a technical reason to image vs clone?

 

 

Derek, regardless of using a clone, you will still have additional down time when restoring a backup to an existing drive which includes the OS unless you are going to do this on a different system and restore to the drive in an external docking station or enclosure.

When you do a full disk recovery / restore the first step of that recovery is to wipe out the data on the target drive ready to restore the data contained in the backup image, hence if you go with a cloned drive, this will still happen in order to bring the drive upto date with all changes made since the clone was created.

In reality, you may as well just restore the full disk backup directly to the new drive and then install it in the system where it is needed (if doing the restore on a different system) or boot from the restored drive if doing this on the actual system.

derek glynn wrote:

Thanks

other than the fact a clone is a one shot deal (no increment backups), and takes up a whole drive, with the the trade off being the only down time is that of the time it takes to install and switchto the cloned drive, and it won't include any 'new' data, is there a technical reason to image vs clone?

This thread may be useful for you to determine the difference between a clone and a backup.  Check out the KB articles in the thread.

https://forum.acronis.com/forum/126072#comment-391792

Primarily, a clone can go bad - people clone the wrong way, or an issue occurs becuase they start the clone from Windows instead of rescue media, or thye forget to pull a drive and the UEFI bios gets confused and decides to update teh windows bootmanager on one or both drives and renders one or both drives unbootable in the process.  There is no safetynet wit cloning and no returning if something bad happens.  A clone is really a one time job meant for swappng out hard drives and not intended as a backup scheme.  Even the Acronis documentation says you should take a backup before cloning.

Thanks Steve

So if I understand correctly,

if I clone my drive, then install it when needed, and I attempt to restore an image that was taken post cloning to restore more recent data (that was taken post cloning), then all data on the cloned drive will be replaced by the image, including the applications and drivers,  yes??

..I  thought you could selectively restore files, and in this case it would the datam thus not affecting the applications?

 

if yes to the above Q, then it sounds like there's no real purpose to cloning a drive, other than if I want to have several machines set up the same way, ie applications all looking the same, or an immediately available replacement drive (but take the risk that nothing has changed such as driver/app updates on the original drive post cloning)

Other then downtime, and actually the more critical and key reason I thought about cloning (vs imaging), was that I don't want to have to re-install all my applications/partitions etc (all data is copied elsewhere on the company network, so we always have a copy somewhere).

If an image can do this safely then it seems an image is the better way to go, yes?...especially when I use the incremental image option to backup weekly changes to the drive, that would include any application updates, and data, although I'm not so worried about data.

I just thought cloning was safer than images, and that sometimes imges fail.

 

thanks

Derek

 

derek glynn wrote:

Thanks Steve

So if I understand correctly,

if I clone my drive, then install it when needed, and I attempt to restore an image that was taken post cloning to restore more recent data (that was taken post cloning), then all data on the cloned drive will be replaced by the image, including the applications and drivers,  yes??

..I  thought you could selectively restore files, and in this case it would the datam thus not affecting the applications?

YES - you can do this for DATA only (you can't restore apps, databases, settings, registry keys this way - not cleanly).  Keep in mind that more current backups (the Acronis Database), Windows updates, other software updates (AV, newer versions, etc.) would not get updated this way and after restoring your personal data (pictures, movies, documents, music, etc), you'd still have to manually update all of those applications, Windows updates, etc. again.  As a result, you'd probably spend MORE time trying to pick out the differences in files and folders and getting the system current again, than if you would have just taken a full disk backup using incremental or differentials and restoring the entire thing. 

****EDIT - added info here 

For me, to keep things fast, I backup each disk separately.  I keep my OS disk reasonably small with just the OS and applications and the documents and files the most dear to me and often used.  I back that up with one task and it's only about 70GB total - takes me 8 minutes to do a full backup or full restore to a spinning drive.  Takes me about 5 minutes to another SSD and takes me less than 3 minutes to another PCIE NVME drive.  If my OS goes belly up, restores are simple and fast.

Lifewise, I keep my DATA on another drive - movies, music, sofware installers, etc.  I back this disk up separately with it's own task and less frequently than the OS drive since it doesnt' change as much.  If my OS drive needs to be restored, restoring it has no bearing on this drive and vice-versa - makes restores faster and less worrisome by keeping them separate.  

I run backups for OS drive 1 on M, W, F, SAT to local drive B and on T, W, Thu, Sun to NAS drive B

I run backups for DATA drive 2 on T, W, Thu, Sun to local drive B and on M, W, F, SAT to NAS drive B

This gives me 2 points of references on 2 different locations for both drives - lots of options to choose from for recovery.

​**** END EDIT

if yes to the above Q, then it sounds like there's no real purpose to cloning a drive, other than if I want to have several machines set up the same way, ie applications all looking the same, or an immediately available replacement drive (but take the risk that nothing has changed such as driver/app updates on the original drive post cloning)

YES - pretty much.  Cloning is really meant as a process for switching hard drives where you want to move everythign from a smaller drive to a bigger one or from an older one to a new one.  You can clone before moving an OS to new hardware (new computer/motherboard), but that doesn't take into account Windows licensing for the OS and you'd likely need to make some bios changes and run Universal Restore to generalize OS drivers and then reinstall them when Windows is loaded up and licensed correctly. 

Other then downtime, and actually the more critical and key reason I thought about cloning (vs imaging), was that I don't want to have to re-install all my applications/partitions etc (all data is copied elsewhere on the company network, so we always have a copy somewhere).

This is what taking a full disk backu does as well.  You restore the full disk backup and it has your entire OS, apps, and DATA as it lived on the drive at the time of the backup.  A backup file allows you to recover this or revert back at anytime to whatever backup you have on hand and want to use.  Plus, if you use an incremental or differential backup plan, with each backup that's run, you only backup the changes that have occured (incrementals backup changes just since the last incremental and rely on the original full and all incrementals that came before it in that backup chain.... differentials backup all changes since the origial full in that version chain and have no reliance on other differentials)

If an image can do this safely then it seems an image is the better way to go, yes?...especially when I use the incremental image option to backup weekly changes to the drive, that would include any application updates, and data, although I'm not so worried about data.

YES - I only backup and restore.  I've cloned only 1 time in the realworld and that was only because I only had 2 drives to work with and no place to put a backup image since I was travelling abroad and helping a relative on the fly. 

I just thought cloning was safer than images, and that sometimes imges fail.

Nope - not safer.  Clones can fail too - so can hard drives that contain clones or backups.  Diversifying backup and clone options and having more than one, and in different locations is the way to go.  Use 3-2-1 as your best practice

thanks

Derek

great, thanks for all the info

last question,

any quick links on the proess of restoring?

I understand I may need a bootable disk (USB stick?), I do have the CD versions as well of ATI 2017

derek

 

USB drive or CD/DVD is fine - just test them to make sure they can see your source and destination drives if you want to take OFFLINE backups, or do ANY RESTORE or CLONE process.  You can create a USB bootable drive or a disk using Acronis and the media builder. 

As for restoring:

1) First verify if your OS is installed as UEFI or Legacy:  https://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/29504-bios-mode-see-if-windows-bo…

2) Shutown cleanly (shutdown /P) is ideal to ensure a full shutdown and not a fastboot (hibernation) shutdown with Windows 10.

3) Boot your rescue media to match how your OS was installed (UEFI or Legacy) - this is key for restores.  If you boot legacy, you get a legacy restore and a UEFI OS won't boot then.  Some bios need additional config changes if you try to go from legacy to UEFI - best to keep Apples to Apples though

This thread has screenshot EXAMPLES of how you can check if you're booting rescue media in UEFI or legacy mode:  https://forum.acronis.com/forum/121829#comment-378318

After that, for the general full disk restore, check out thes youtube user vids:

02 - SunGod2009 - How to backup and restore using Acronis True image - YouTube

04 - Britec - How To Restore Windows 10 from a System Image - YouTube

Derek, see post: 128057: [Tutorial] How to recover an entire disk backup which covers doing the recovery / restore of an entire disk backup image.