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Entire PC vs. Disk and Partitions backups

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I know many questions have been asked about this, and many pointers to the documentation have been given, but I still don't know how to decide between Entire PC or Disks and Partitions backups.  This probably because I don't know how a disk recovery works.

I am running Acronis TI 2015, build 6613.  I've got 2 PCs - one with 2 internal drives; the other with 3 internal drives.  

I've never had to recover a drive before, so I'm not sure how this works.  I realize that if I had to do a disk or partition restore from an Entire PC backup I would have to restore all internal drives, but I could restore individual files and folders from the backup.  All of my non-C drives have less than a dozen files each.  Big files, but not many, so recovery of those partitions, folder by folder, would not be a problem using either backup type.

Assuming I am backing up all partions (including the hidden System partition) on a drive with a Disks and Partitions backup is it any more difficult to recover a drive (or all drives) from a Disks and Partitions backup than an Entire PC backup?  I assume the Linux recovery system allows me to specify which partions I want to recover from a Disks and Partitions backup.  And I assume I will end up with a bootable system drive if I recover both the System partition and the C partition.

Are these assumptions correct?

 

 

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The Backup option "Entire PC" :

This option does as its name implies. It is a backup of all internal disks installed in the computer. The user has no choice of what disks to include or exclude as all internal disks present are included.

For users with a single internal disk such as most laptops, this is a good choice as it backs up all disks and all partitions for that single disk so there can be no omission or missing partitions when the backup is completed. This type backups does provide the wide range of recovery possibities from recovering a single/multiple file, single/multiple partitons or a disk restore of its entire contents.

However, For users with multiple internal disk, this option is not a practical  option as the "Entire PC" provides no option  to control which disks are included, causing the backup to be excessive in both space and creation time.

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Disk & Partitons backup;

Users with multiple internal disk will normally bypass the "Entire PC" option and instead,  choose the "Disk & partitions" option to create their backups. This option enables the user to choose which disks and which partitons are to be included within the backup, It does imply, however,  that the user understands what partitons/disks to choose to be included in order for the backup to have all the same recovery capabilities as an "Entire PC" backup,

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The TI Recovery CD is the prime method for the recovey of either type backup. User chooses type of restore from disk/partition/file choices.

The more the user knows about their system, the better chances of success.  Some of Win7 systems, most of Win 8.x and Win 10 retail sytems are sold as GPT style rather than MBR style partitioning/formatting. User needs to determine how their systems are configured in order to make the right choices when performing backups or restores.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/40903#comment-129029

Thank you for your reply.  I will switch back to Disks and Partitions backups (which I used prior to TI 2015). 

My 3 devices (2 PCs, 1 laptop) all use MBR partitioning.  (One PC doesn't even have UEFI support.)  Even if GPT is more flexable (and allows larger drives) I don't think it is worth the effort to rebuild the laptop and PC that could make use of it.

BTW, I did not get notification that you nhad posted a reply to my question even though I had "Notify me when new comments are posted" checked.  Is this function broken?