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Help with Backup Plan and Transfer of files from 3 small drives to 3 larger drives

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Was really wondering if you could help me on my backup / Clone plan.

I currently have 3 1.5TB Seagate Barracudas and 1 1TB Hitachi. I upgrade to 3 WD Red 3TB drives and now need to move the data from one drive to the other. I own Acronis Power Director and Acronis True Image w/ Plus Pack.

I first thought it would be better to backup the data on each drive to one of the WD Red 3TB drives and then transfer files. However is this really the best option? Would it have been better to have just copy and pasted the files in windows to the new drive? The issue I have is that all 3 1.5 TB Seagate drives have between 2-4 partitions on them. I don't really need these partitions now since I have 3 large WD Red 3TB drives. Hence why I did not do the clone option since I really do not want the WD Drives to be broken up this way.

What would you say is the best way of transferring the files then backing up? I thought the Version Chain option was the best option. However, I setup a backup on 1 drive (2 partitions) under file backup and it is still running 12 hrs later with Normal encryption.

I really appreciate your help.

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If the data that you move doesn't contain any system or OS partition(s), just transfer the files using Windows explorer...
If one partitions contains an OS or is active, create an image of that partition, take the old disk out, put the new disk at its place and restore the system or OS partition(s) to the other blank disk. Verify the new disk can boot. When it does, reconnect the OLD disk to another connector, reboot and add the non-OS data onto the new boot disk, or wherever you want..

From Grover:
Second, you do not indicate which True Image is in use and which version of Windows.
Using True Image 2013 w/ Plus Pack as I have 1 drive w/ 2 dynamic partitions for some reason.

Third, All all these drives inside one computer?
All Drives are connected inside the computer

Fourth. are all data drives or do some have systems installed?
1 Drive has 4 partitions: with Win &, the second partition holds program files the rest are data This includes the other 3 Disks

A file backup might be alright if the disk is simply a data disk with no system installed; A pure data copy would be better accomplished using REPLICATOR by Karen Kenworthy as it has error checking and many more options.
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

If the disk has a bootable system installed. I would suggest you use True Image and make a disk option backup and then restore the backup. Look at item #3 below and read both options 1 and 2 inside the link.

Provide answers to the above and repost in the forum for support by all.

Thanks guys, Pat L and Grover I will go ahead and just copy paste the data from the old drives to the new with Replicator. Then after they are copied over I will start backups. What is the best option for a backup for a Pure Data drive. File Backup under the Version Scheme so it only gets the directories I want, or is it better to do
1. a Non Stop backup on my Photo / video drives and
2. weekly / monthly Version backup on pure non essential data?
3. Weekly Backup on Windows drive with Version Scheme?

For files that are already in a compressed format and typically don't change much (video, music, pictures), I recommend you use a sync solution that can version deleted files for recovery. Windows 8 file history works well. Genie Timeline also. I use syncback SE. At any rate, I would use a bakcup solution that doesn't put these files in a proprietary container.

For files that change a lot, and for which you want to keep a history of versions, (work documents, quicken files), a file backup works fine.

For files that you can't reproduce, recreate, buy again or redo (eg personal pictures, work of art, etc.), I would use a redundant backup strategy, diversify the backup location (eg rotate disks, take one offsite or to the bank, or use an online backup solution).

I would not use non-stop backup.

Thanks a lot Pat,

For my pictures / Videos / Work documents I will copy them to a new drive with Karen's Replicator. Then from there I will make a Backup of the changes weekly and once a month do a full size backup.

For the S Drive, I am going to pop in the new Drive and clone that drive to the new one as there is 1 boot / system partition, 1 data partition, and another active partition(nothing special on it).

From what I read it is best to do this from a fresh reboot, which I will do.

For the other data drives, I will just do a Replicate on them to the new WD Red 3 TB drive and once everything is on there I will do a backup on one of the other drives.

Thanks a mil.