Backup Disks or Whole System

Rick, if you have 4 separate internal disk drives installed in your computer, then using the 'Entire PC' option for the Source of an ATI backup task will want to include all 4 drives, including the one you are using for your Destination to store backup images.

Personally, I would always recommend making separate backups of each physical disk drive and not including them all in a single backup task.  My reason for doing this is with a thought to doing any future recovery.

Your current method of including 3 disks in a single backup creates a much larger backup image file which in turn will take longer to load and recover from, plus requires more careful attention when doing a recovery to ensure that the correct disk is selected along with the correct target for where it should be recovered to.

Using a single disk per backup image gives smaller backup images and a simple recovery approach, especially when the backup image is given a clearly identifiable name to match with the target disk to be recovered to.

Finally, having all your backup images stored on the fourth internal disk is ripe for being attacked by any malware or ransomware if it gets a foothold on your computer, plus unless you have protection against power surges etc in the form of UPS device(s) then all drives are at risk from external power events such as a lightening strike etc.

I would recommend using both your internal backup drive Z: and doing further backups to an external backup drive too, where the latter is disconnected when not being used.

I am in full agreement with Steve Smith on this.

Ian

I am in full agreement wit Steve and Ian, however, do remember this please...

  No backup is worth its" salt if YOU have not tested a system and data recovery.

  So many times I have read where people are asking for help only to discover that they have never actually attempted a recovery.  The folks here are actually "Miracle Workers" and can help when times are really tough but having actually accomplished a recovery to a replacement test disk before you know you have trouble is always a great option..... 

I am speaking from experience because I did not test TIH before I had trouble.... that was a decade ago with TIH2010.  I NEVER EVER repeated that mistake.  The people here saved me but it doesn't always work out that way.

Steve F.

Steve F., and others,

What do you feel is the best way to test a system and data recovery?

The ultimate test is to recover to the drive backed up, but if the drive is fine and the recovery fails, you're now left with a bad drive.

If recovery is to a separate spare drive, is the test adequate to assure that an OS can be properly recovered?

Is the purpose of the test to validate the process or validate the backup?

Is there a good write-up on this subject?

Bruno, the purpose of any testing of the backup process is two-fold.

It is important that all users should understand the principle that would be needed to recover from any backup being created, including creating Acronis rescue media and identifying the correct BIOS mode to be used when booting from that media.

Ideally, rather than restoring to the original source drive (unless necessity dictates) then doing a practise recovery to a spare drive is a good initial test of the recovery process while at the same time validating that the backup image itself is good!

Any recovery to a spare drive should take the test to the next step of swapping out the original drive and replacing this by the recovered drive to prove that the OS on that drive will boot up to the Windows desktop successfully.  For some users, this extra step may be more of a challenge if they have not delved into the insides of their computer previously, especially if the computer is a laptop or notebook type enclosure.  Laptop users should look to the makers support site for any Service & Repair hardware manuals that provide details of drive replacement.

Interesting discussion? I do back-up 3 drives (on 2 PC's,) to an individual back-up. I know it takes longer to do the 3 drive image, but timewise isn't it the same as running 3 individual back-ups? This is what my back-up job consists of:

I've never had a problem restoring and individual drive completely either?

Have a boot problem, I'd restore part of the SANDISK, OS problem, the C: only. Can also restore individual files or folders with now problem.

Why is this wrong?

My reason for having a full 'set' is too many programs interact with the Registry and store data in the USERS folder on C:. In addition, my C: is basically OS only. K: and L: are installed programs and data files only. Having a C: most recent probably would be OK, but it is better choice I think to always have a matching set (as matching that that can be if the PC is used during a backup). Even with individual disk/partition back-ups, assuming a back-up per disk, one would probably want to back-up the C: along with the other drive/partition anyway, no?

If you have programs installed other than on the system partition, then you should have a backup task that includes the system partition and the partitions on which the programs are installed. If they are out of sync, things could go very wrong.

I always install programs on the OS partition (on my main computers is on a fast 500gig Samsung M.2 NVMe drive), so I back it up separately from my data drives. I also have files and folders backup of my user folders on the System drive which is done twice a day (both to my NAS and to the Acronis Cloud). 

Ian