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Best form of backup: clone vs one click & ease of use of restoring to diss. hardware

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Hello. I want to thank everyone responsible for setting up this forum. I also want to thank those knowledgeable persons who help people by answering their questions.

I purchased Acronis Home 2011 with the additional plus pack. My initial intention was to clone my primary hard drive (3.5 inch SATA in desktop) approximately once per month. If my primary hard drive went down, I would just replace it with the clone. With the addition of the plus pack, I thought that if I had a catastrophic computer failure I could place my cloned harddrive into another PC and have the same environment as that provided by my primary hard drive. The clone was going to be a similar 3.5 inch SATA but in an external hard drive enclosure attached to the PC via a USB cable.

However, after reading the Help file, it seems to me that the 'One-Click Backup' is essentially the same thing as cloning. Is this correct?

My computer does not like booting from USB, so if the primary fails I have to physically replace it in order to boot the computer. Is there any difference between the 'One-Click-Backup' left with the defaults set to once per month and just cloning once per month?

If I use the 'Rescue Media Builder', which is where the 'Home 2011 Plus Pack' seems to be mainly incorporated, do I still need to search for drivers if installing to dissimilar hardware? Is there anyone who has restored to dissimilar hardware without providing specific drivers for their new environment and just provided the drivers at a later date once the system was up and running?

In the worst case scenario where I have to install to dissimilar hardware, do I only need the bootable media made from the Plus Pack and the appropriate drivers for the new hardware?

I apologise if these questions have been answered before, or are answered in the Help file, but right now I feel like my head is plitting with information overload and I don't know if I can read any more of the help file without getting more confused as this point.

Yours respectfully,

ChocolateBurmese

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Cloning creates an exact copy of your disk: your result is a disk.
Backing up creates one or several archives TIB files that contain all the information to restore your disk to its previous state, at the sector level.
If your primary goal is to be able to do that (restore or replace a disk) than do a backup.
Do no do a one click backup though. Nothing wrong with the one click backup per se. It is just an initial backup.
I recommend you actually do the following:
- launch ATI, go to the main screen (forget about the wizards), click on "disk and partition backup", click on the blue link in the upper right corner that says "switch to disk mode", select at least your system disk. You would get the same result if you checked all the partitions of your system disk (see attachment).
- verify that ATI has selected the right external disk as the destination.
- click on the destination, scroll down, choose browse and using the left navigation panel double click your way until you are in your preferred destination,
- type a simple TIB file name. in the box there. Eg "System". Do not use the time or date tags. They can create problems.
- click OK to close the destination window
- now click on the backup scheme (Version chain). In the window that pops up, set the backup scheme to incremental. See the attached as an example. Do not create too many incrementals before a new full. That depends on how often you backup and how much change you have. A way to evaluate how many is the following: if all incrementals were corrupted, would you feel comfortable using the last full backup you have?
- in the same window, choose the advanced tab. Click on validation. Click on the schedule. Unfold the schedule advanced option, and uncheck all the options there. Then click on do not schedule, unless you want a regular validation. See attachment. Close the validation schedule window.
- go backup to the backup scheme tab
- click OK to close the backup options window
- click backup now or choose to backup later.
Once the backup is done. Validate it (Operations -> Validate)
Moving forward, you can go back to the backup settings and add a schedule for the backup if you want. Or leave it manual.

About the recovery CD with Universal Restore: yes you will need the uncompressed drivers for your new hardware.

Don't hesitate to ask.

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Thank you Pat for your reply. Just a few more questions if you have the time and inclination to answer:

If I physically replace a primary hardrive with a drive backed up with the scheme you mentioned above, will it work just the same as replacing a primary drive with a relatively recently cloned drive? (of course I understand that 'relatively' depends on the frequency of backups)

If I don't use the incremental backup scheme you mentioned above, but instead use the one click feature and schedule full backups once per month as per the default backup scheme, would then replacing the primary drive with that drive work the same as replacing it with a relatively recently cloned drive?

Thanks in advance

Choc.

Yes, if you have a full disk (ie all partitions) backup, you will be able to put a new drive in your computer and restore to the point of backup, exactly.

Yes, make sure that the one-click backup is including all the partitions of your system disk (including those that are hidden, but that ATI sees when you start a disk and partition backup setup). With this, you are also good to go.

Also remember to create a CD, and actually boot your computer with the CD. Try to restore a couple of files. Just to make sure, you know, that you can do it when you need it.

Thanks Pat! That cleared a few things up and I am relieved to know that I can do what I want easily.

Thanks again.

Choc.