Lester, on what do you base your claim that USB drives are any less reliable than others? I've got a Buffalo twin 1-TB in a RAID1 configuration, and I've never had a hint of any problem. And a six-year-old Buffalo 120 GB USB is still in perfect operating condition, other than the fact that I cannot use it for an entire system backup anymore, because of the size. (Thank you, 15 megabyte RAW files.)
Also, a tip for something I *finally* solved in conjunction with Acronis and my backup configuration. For a long time with this RAID setup, I was getting ftdisk or disk errors in the System log, for about 1 to 2 hours after a nightly backup was completed. Then the errors would stop (about 5 am in the morning). I could not solve it until I finally looked at each and every item in Tools > Options > Default Backup Options > Additional Settings. Unchecked by default, is a line item: "Dismount media after backup is finished". I checked that, and from that moment on I never had another ftdisk or disk error in the System log. I should add here that the errors did not mean anything -- the data was fine. Oddly enough, as far as Windows is concerned, the USB drives are still mounted in the morning. So the "dismount" must be Acronis from the drives, rather than the drives from Windows. But I think Acronis ought to fix this so that it doesn't spit out dozens upon dozens of yellow triangles in the log. (Why the default would be not to dismount prior to program close, I cannot imagine.) They could overhaul that interface, too. The sub windows (such as the one you get to above) are much too small and don't stay sized, and resizing them has an clunky feel about it. When I "drill down", I like to see where I've been, as well as where I am and where I'm going. ^_^ Excellent program however. I've accomplished numerous restores and never had a bit or a byte out of place to my knowledge. That's what we pay for: peace of mind. I'll add that in your "the way it works" explanation, maybe you forgot to say that one has a choice, too, of either restoring entire partitions, or just restoring files or folders. And in the later case it's sometimes just as easy, or even easier, to simply mount the image and do a manual copy across, than to sort through all the dialog options for a restore. BTW, I've always had an uneasy feeling about the Secure Zone feature of Acronis. To me, that just adds one more layer of complexity between a restore and the data. (If, for any reason, TI cannot solve the Secure Zone -- that it exists on the drive -- then I cannot see how it can possibly restore the data that resides there, nor can I see how one could use the OS to make that data visible to the program.) So I never used it and still don't. But TI has never failed to restore (never had an unreadable backup), so I have no particular reason to think it might fail to decipher the Secure Zone. I just like to keep things as simple as possible. Finally, I never bother to verify my images after writing them anymore. First, I've never had an image that did not verify, and second, according to posters on Acronis forums, a verified image still is no guarantee that the image can be restored or mounted. So I don't bother with verifying now. (The verify process only verifies that *all* data on the image can be read; it does *not* compare data on the image with source data.) Yuki Sunday, January 4, 2009, 6:24:26 AM, you wrote: >> I can take a product like this and save my complete hard drive on say >> a usb hard drive and it will automaticly backup the complete hard >> drive when ever I want it to do it. LV> 1) The backup can be stored on your disk, in the secure partition which is LV> not visible to Windows XP / Vista. On the screenshot below it is shown as LV> "Logical Disk - Unknown (BC) and has no drive letter: LV> http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/7749/01032009160435kv5.png LV> 2) Another method is to store the backup on an external hard drive. USB LV> drive is not a good idea because they are not very reliable. >> Then if I have hard drive problems, I can put the copy that is on the >> [external] hard drive on my machine hard drive and it will be just >> like it was, with all programs and files the same as the last backup? LV> That's right. The backup copy has it's own mini-OS (it doesn't need LV> Windows). You boot into the external drive (or into the secure partition) LV> and follow the prompts. LV> My Windows XP takes about 8 GB of disk space and restoring all this from LV> Acronis secure partition takes about 4 minutes. >> This type of software is something everyone should have. LV> Absolutely correct. >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: Lester Vanhoff >> >> Microsoft's System Restore is very unreliable. It's just dumb luck >> that it worked for you. Consider getting a disk imaging application >> and do the disk image backup every day. One of the best programs is >> Acronis True Image, I've been using it for years. The way it works, >> when you get into a problem, it wipes out (formats) the whole disk >> (or selected partitions), including your operating system, and then >> restores everything from the backup image. >> >> http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/ >>
