optimal backup constellation
Hi,
i purchased Acronis True Image 2016.
I am currently using a 1 TB internal harddrive.
For backup or cloning i also have
- one identical 1 TB internal harddrive
- one external 1 TB USB harddrive.
I can't make my mind up how to use the two extra harddrives (one internal, one external) for an intelligent backup constellation. I thought about RAID1 for the two internal drives and then normal backups onto the external HD, but don't want to complicate things with Raid, as i am still running Win 7 and my mainboard isn't that new anymore.
So i thought about cloning my internal - currently in use - HD onto the second internal drive once a week or month, and using the external USB HD for storing backup versions on it. But i am not sure if i can clone a running system onto another internal HD (both Sata), without having booting problems. How would my PC know which HD i want to boot? How would i know, which one is the right one, if the HDs are identical?
And apparently cloning onto the external USB HD isn't much better either, as in the case i would need it, that external USB HD couldn't boot by itself, so that doesn't seem reasonable. (I am used to cloning instead of backuping because i used to only have the WD Edition of Acronis).
So i think i should forget cloning as a backup method, and instead just do normal full and incremental/differential backups. But then how could i use the two extra HDs (one internal, one external USB) optimally?
Should i just do normal backups onto the internal HD regularly and copy them to the USB external HD? Are there any other ideas or methods i could consider with this specific hardware setup?
Or should i perhaps do full backups once a month onto the external USB HD and do inkremental backups onto the internal HD every day? (Not having to attach usb and electricity cables for the external HD so often would be nice).
(Also, unrelated question: I originally bought the second internal HD to clone everything from the old first HD onto it, and then use the old HD just for backups, so that if it dies, which could be anytime since it's old, i would only lose backups, not my running system. So the above mentioned cloning question, about cloning a bootable windows system to another internal HD is important for me, even if i don't use cloning as a method of security anymore, i would want to do it at least once, to swap onto the newer disk for daily pc activities).
thanks in advance for some advice.
Hello Steve Smith,
thank you for your proficient, enlightening answer. I would like to recap to make sure i understood everything correctly and add a few last questions.
1) Cloning the running HD to the second internal HD is risky because of windows booting problems. Instead i could use the second intern. HD to do regular backups on it.
-> Question:
a) Would it protect the HD from malware/ransomware by... say... encrypting it (or just the volume containing the backup .tib) with something like VeraCrypt?
b) Or is deactivating it via Control Panel > Disk Management a reasonable protection? I know i couldn't automize the backups either way, but it doesn't take up much time to decrypt or activate and start the ATIH 2016. And i don't necessarily need the additional 1 TB (minus the backup space).
2.) I could use the extern. USB HD less often, but still regularly, for manual backups as a protection from malware etc. But i can't boot from it.
-> Question:
But still it's not worthless right? Say i had to leave my house due to a storm or whatever and could only grab that ext. USB HD -- i could still use the backups on it and the ATIH media rebuilder USB Stick thingy to recover the full system onto a new HD of a new PC, right?
3.) Concerning the idea of cloning the old (currently running) HD(1) onto the new (second) int. HD(2), so i can use the new HD(2) for my current system and the old HD(1) for backups: Is it possible to do it without caddies (don't have them and my HDDs are all 3,5")?
I was thinking along the lines of perhaps doing a full backup of HD(1) onto the USB ext. HD, then detaching HD(1) and recovering the backup from the USB HD to HD(2) via Media rebuilder (offline from Windows). That would be a good first test of a recovery emergency and, if it works, give me my running system back - then on the new HD(2). But just how would I erase/format the old HD(1) without encountering the booting problem? I would need to format it afterwards to use it as the destinated backup HD. I know i could format before the recover process between the other disks, perhaps during a windows installation process, but i am too scared to do that incase the recovery doesn't work afterwards and i am left with nothing. I hope my question is clear enough and you know what i am asking.
Thanks for the backup method advice. I will do it accordingly.
I have a similar setup but have 3 internal drives an external. Major difference is my C: is on an SSD. When I first got the PC I immediately shrunk the original C: to about the size of the SSD I had. I then used an OS to SSD cloning program as on the other PC I had I hit the 'duplicate hard drive' problem. Easily fixed though using a BINARY DISK EDITOR (if you know where the disk signature is) to change that. I think used the rest of the original 1TB drive as a data partition. Kept the OLD C: around 'just in case' and it has come in handy. What I then had was a DUAL BOOT system. Normally booted into the SDD but if I wanted to go to the old C: on the 1TB drive I could use F12 on boot to get to the Boot Menu or go into BIOS and change the boot order.
I kept the 2nd 1TB drive as a back up repository. Over time I out grew that. My backup strategy was to keep FULL backups over both the SSD (only had a C: partition and all the other partitions on it) and all but the original C: on the 1TB drive. I tried keeping at least 4 interations taken once a week. I had up to 1 month to go back if I needed something or somehow the system got corrupted. Once that number dropped too low for me (2 interations) I got the External drive and I'm using it.
My thought of having an OS partition and data partition was if the OS go corrupted the recovery would be faster. No need to recover the data partition.
As for Ransomware... hopefully good A/V and F/W will block that. However depending what one hits you it could lock everything or just the OS. You never know, best to be protected. Some web sites do have 'unlockers' too but you can never tell. Google BLOCK RANSOMWARE for some interesting 'solultions'.
If you really are afraid of Ransomware, the best solution it to make FULL BACKUPS of all the drives/partitions to an External drive. Once the backup completes (you can get email when that happens and set True Image to backup only when the drive is connected) DISCONNECT it. That way Ransomware cannot get to it.
Since you have W7 and probably had it for sometime it might not be easy to move a lot of data to a data partition. It can be done but will be a lot of work. In that case, stay with a single partition and start using the 2nd drive for new data of an Internal backup drive (which might be a target to Ransomware).
Johann, thanks for your reply and further questions:
-> Question:
a) Would it protect the HD from malware/ransomware by... say... encrypting it (or just the volume containing the backup .tib) with something like VeraCrypt?
b) Or is deactivating it via Control Panel > Disk Management a reasonable protection? I know i couldn't automize the backups either way, but it doesn't take up much time to decrypt or activate and start the ATIH 2016. And i don't necessarily need the additional 1 TB (minus the backup space).
Any drive that is accessible within Windows is potentially at risk from malware/ransomware - even with encryption there is no 100% guarantee as the drive would have to be unlocked in order to read or write from/to it and is thus exposed for that time. Encryption is only really secure if you are able to access and unlock the encrypted drive from outside of Windows using offline bootable media - the Acronis Rescue Media will not work with an encrypted drive and does not provide any method of unlocking the drive.
In essence the same applies to deactivating the drive using Disk Management - you could remove the drive letter and thus hide the drive from running processes, but you would still need to assign a drive letter in order to read/write the drive, and thus it is again exposed at that point. The plus point for this method is that the drive would become visible and be assigned a drive letter when using the Acronis bootable Rescue Media, so would remain secure is doing any backups / restores using such offline media.
-> Question: Ref the external USB drive.
But still it's not worthless right? Say i had to leave my house due to a storm or whatever and could only grab that ext. USB HD -- i could still use the backups on it and the ATIH media rebuilder USB Stick thingy to recover the full system onto a new HD of a new PC, right?
The external USB drive is definitely not worthless! Keeping an offline, disconnected backup is your best protection against the sorts of virulent malware / ransomware that are active these days - even if your backup on the USB drive is not the most recent, you could at least recover your system back to a known point in time prior to a malware infection and only suffer the lost of more recent data, rather than needing to even consider for a moment the option of either losing everything or paying a ransom to possibly get your data back (with no guarantee of doing so!).
The Acronis bootable Rescue Media can be used to both backup or restore to/from the USB drive, on the source or a different system. Recovering to a new PC is a little more complicated and would require Acronis Universal Restore.
Concerning the idea of cloning the old (currently running) HD(1) onto the new (second) int. HD(2), so i can use the new HD(2) for my current system and the old HD(1) for backups: Is it possible to do it without caddies (don't have them and my HDDs are all 3,5")?
I was thinking along the lines of perhaps doing a full backup of HD(1) onto the USB ext. HD, then detaching HD(1) and recovering the backup from the USB HD to HD(2) via Media rebuilder (offline from Windows).
Yes, you can clone without using caddies but would need to open the computer case and remove one of the drives to avoid booting into Windows with both identical drives connected, caddies just make this much simpler to manage but assume that you have a desktop / tower system that could accommodate at least one caddy.
Backup and restore is an acceptible alternative to using cloning and is preferred by some users - a backup should always be made before attempting cloning if only for protection against mistakes. Backup & restore is the only method available in some circumstances, i.e. where drive logical sector sizes are different.
But just how would I erase/format the old HD(1) without encountering the booting problem? I would need to format it afterwards to use it as the destinated backup HD.
There is no need to format the target HDD when doing either a clone or a restore using Acronis as the target drive will be wiped as a part of the clone or restore process.
To wipe the HDD after testing the clone / restore, the simplest method would be to boot into Windows without it being connected, then connect the drive using USB with either an external USB caddy or USB - SATA adapter. This would avoid attempting to boot with identical drives and you can then use normal Windows tools to format the HDD ready for use as a backup drive, i.e. from within Windows Explorer or using Disk Management.
Thanks to everybody. :-)
Hi again,
i tried to set up an automatic backup for the second internal hdd.
I want to backup the complete first internal hdd.
But one full backup of my 1 TB hdd is about 500 and something GB in size, and so everytime ATIH tries to do a new backup, i get an error because the 1TB size of the destination hdd is full. Two backups don't fit, obviously.
Is there any way that ATIH can be set, so that it can do a new full backup and overwrite the existing one simultaneously, so i don't have the storage problem?
It seems, it doesn't even matter which backup scheme i use -> even if I set ATIH to do one full backup and then three incremental backups, the same problem would then happen to me in a few weeks, when the second full backup doesn't fit onto the hdd, because of the old one.
What am i supposed to do? I can't do automatic backups now!? Do i seriously need a 2 TB hdd to be able to do automated backups of a 1TB hdd? Do i have to manually erase the old backup everytime so that i can manually start a new backup?
In the ADVANCED setting for the backup process there is PRE/POST COMMANDS. You can add a DELETE command to PRE-COMMAND to do the old backup deletion. Also turn off Auto Cleanup I guess.
In the HELP it does say you can use different levels of compression, but I wouldn't expect that to help much in your case.
Only exposure you'd have is if 'something' happens between the time you delete the old backup and the backup completes or should fail. You'd have no backup then.
Another thing would be to purchase an external drive, a 2 or 4TB, that would solve your problem. A USB 3.0 drive should perform well, not as good as an internal drive, but better than a USB 2.0 drive.
Is there any way that ATIH can be set, so that it can do a new full backup and overwrite the existing one simultaneously, so i don't have the storage problem?
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Yes and no. You can use a clean up job in your task to automatically clean up old jobs. You would essentially tell it to only keep 1 backup. However, Acronis is configured so that it does not cleanup the old backup until a new full backup has completed. This is a safety precaution... for instance, suppose you delete the only backup you have first, start a new backup, but then you have a power outage or a hardware failure and you can't boot your computer, or the hard drive becomes toast? You would then have no backup to rely on so Acronis cleanup jobs are dependent upon the next full completing before automated cleanup tasks (which you must configure) take place.
Ultimately, it sounds like your backup storage drive is too small - it should typically be about 3 times as large as a single backup so that you can get at least one more full on it in order for the backup grooming to complete.