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Backup system to the internal HDD and then copy it to the external

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Hi, I have seagate diswizard, and I have some doubts, regarding making a backup of the system. So it would be backing up the entire pc, and then create a bootable disc, so that I could restore the system, right?

So I choose to backup the entire PC (I have only the C: partition at the moment), and then I want to choose the same hard drive as destination. Because if I choose the external WD My Passport I have, it would quite slow, I think 17 hours or more. And I also don't like the idea of having the external hard drive working continuously for many hours.

So I want to copy to the same internal HDD, mainly because of the speed, and then copy it to my WD external HDD.

My question is: would it be right to backup the system this way or it has to be done the backup straightaway to the external HDD? 

 

 

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infra, welcome to these public User Forums.

Please see KB 2201: Support for OEM Versions of Acronis Products - which applies to your Seagate Discwizard application.

The key concern with writing any backup file to the same physical drive is simply that if that drive dies or fails etc, you lose everything on the drive.

That said, if you are willing to accept the risk, then you need to make a separate partition on the drive to store your backup files in.  Acronis will not allow you to select a destination on the same partition that you are making a backup from for obvious reasons!

If you don't already have a second 'data' partition on your main OS drive, then download a copy of the free MiniTool Partition Wizard software which will allow you to reduce the size of the main OS partition and create a new data partition behind this on the drive.

Note: it is highly recommended to have a current backup of your drive before using any partition software in case of making any mistakes!

While making a backup to the second partition on the same drive may be faster than writing to an external drive, there will still be overheads here as all read and write operations are using the same physical drive.

Once you have your local backup on the second partition, then you can use any file sync tool to copy this to your external drive.

Please be aware that Acronis backup files are also excluded by default. So, if you restore the entire disk in such a setup, there will be no .tib files previously backed up, and hence... None restored. This is a really bad idea as it is too easy to leave yourself with a bad recovery and no backup files for n the process.

Run your backups after hours or when the computer is not being used and let it do it's thing. A slow, but good and safe backup is much better than a slightly faster and risky backup.

Please, also change to a disk backup and not an "entire PC" backup. If you change disk or partitions down the road, entire PC may backup much more than expected. Backing up individual and specific disks makes recovery much easier.