general questions

Jim Stramler wrote:

I purchased True Image 2017 and have some questions.

1)  how do I back up just my system files for recovery?  Where can I store them?  Does it have to be in another partition on the same disk, or another disk in the same computer? Can it be on removable media? How would this differ from a rescue media disk?

It depends on where you keep your user data.  Acronis can backup files/folders, but those types of backups are only suitable for data recovery. You cannore restore something like C:\Windows or C:\program files and expect to recover your OS because the associated registry keys, background services, other hidden files/folders and user associated appdata files would not be included.  To backup your OS, you need to backup, at a minimum, the System Reservedd patition and the C: drive in it's entirety.  For me, I keep my OS as small as possible, keeping my user data (pics, music, software installers, videos) on another parition (actually another drive).  That way, my OS drive backups are small and quick to backup and quick to restore.  Plus, my user data and OS are not tied to each other so I can recover one without impacting the other. 

2)  I've got terabytes of data. 50 GB in the cloud is not adequate. How can I back that up? Is the data compressed, other?

Yes, all backups are compressed.  In most cases, you can expect to see about a 20-30% reduction in backup size compared to original data.  However, it depends on what you're backing up.  Pictures and movies are already compressed so they will not be compressed further within a backup.  If you want to back these up to the cloud, you would need to purchase additional cloud storage sufficient to backup your existing data and grow some.  Otherwise, you need to back it up to some other local media (which you should do anyway).  This can be an external UsB drive, another internal drive, a network attached storage (NAS) device, etc.  This is up to you to come up with this local space.

3)  I don't use the My documents folder and its subfolders.  How do I change the default to another folder?

I don't understand the qustion.  You want to change the default location of these folders in Windows?  In Acronis, you create different backup jobs.  You can select a file/folders backup and pick just the folders you want to backup.  This is a DATA only backup.  You can recover the contents of the data, but don't expect to restore Windows or applications this way.  Otherwise, you normally pick either a "disk" or "parition" backup.  These backups backup all content on the disk or the parition.  You can then use "exclusions" to filter out files/folders from those backups.  

4)  does any of this protect against ransomware?

Nope.  If ransomeware gets on your computer it doesn't care what kind of data it has access to. If it has access, it has access.  A .zip or a .tib or a .docx are all free game.  Acronis Cloud is your safetynet as the backps there will not be accessible by ransomware. However, if a backup runs while ransomware is doing it's thing, that changed data will replicate to the cloud too.  If you don't have a long retention policy in the cloud then you could end up losing that data as a result.  Your only truly safe method agains ransomware is to have a dedicated exernal USB backup drive which only EVER connects to your PC when you have powered it off first and booted straight into yoru offline Acronis bootable rescue media.  Then take full disk or paritions backup OFFLINE" to that drive. When the backup is done, disconnect your drive and put it somewhere safe until the next backup.  By keeping an offlien backup that never connectes with the OS is booted, you should be able to prevent ransomeware or malware from touching this pariticular backup type. 

The above advice is good. My recollection is that with the current build of Win 10 if you move the default place where documents, photoes and videos are stored (to another HDD and possibly partition) it can result in your system slowing down, particularly if you use Outlook. It is a good idea to store these in non-standard folders as the standard folders are the first place where malicious actions can be expected.

As most, if not all ramsomware relies on eccryption, and any file (including Acronis *.tib files) can be encrypted. So, offline storage is the best protection.

Edit: If you have 1TB of data that you wish to backup, then unless the data rarely changes you would need possibly 1.5TB of Cloud storage. I see that Acronis is now offering 250 gigs with single licence, 500 with double licence, and 1 TB with triple licence. As far as I can work out they have not increased the cost.

Ian

That's good advice from Bobbo and Ian. I'll just add a bit of what I do, which may help you decide your own best course.

My laptop contains a single hard drive. To allow for quicker and smaller OS backups and quicker restores, I partitioned my drive. I have C: for the OS, D: for most user data, and E: for music.

E: contains about 550 MB of music files, so if I included those files in every system backup the backups would take hours and .tib files would be huge. When I create Acronis True Image backups, I use Disk Mode and select the entire drive which therefore includes all partitions and hidden partitions. That gives me .tib files that I know can fully restore a working system. But, I exclude the music files by file type: *.flac, *.m4a, *.mp3. Note that the partition is included, as I have selected to backup the entire disk, but those music files are excluded from the .tib backups

I backup my music collection (over 25,000 large lossless files, about 550 GB) to two external HDs using Robocopy and a command line I wrote.

When I have the need to restore the OS, such as if a newly installed application causes problems, I restore just the C: partition. If I ever had need to restore everything, the entire disk, such as if I had totall drive failure and had to replace the drive, I would first restore the entire disk from the .tib image, and then I would restore the music files from the file-based backup using Robocopy.

That may give you some ideas of how you could create a backup routine to best meet your own needs.