Back up Software

NoIdea · 14 Feb 2008 at 10:26

Hi all,

Be reading a few recommendations on here regarding software for creating a complete image of the HDD.

Acronis, seems to get the big thumbs up.

I assume if I make a complete copy of the drive that windows is installed on then it will be a complete replica, and if the original drive corrupted, i could just swap over to the replica and it will all work?? That sounds too easy!

Also, is there a way of making a complete backup without consuming the full amount of drive space the original drive takes up?

E.g, say 120 GB drive C (drive i want to create a replica of) (windows installation)) and the creating a replica of drive C on a spare HDD, say drive E, would also be 120 GB.

Any way to cut down the amount of space needed?

Thanks

maddness · 14 Feb 2008 at 10:33

with true image you can compress the tib image

e.g. i did a 6gb backup, with maximum compression it was 2.66GB

Hodders · 14 Feb 2008 at 10:54

Acronis only compresses actual data. Empty space takes up little or no part of the archive.

For example if you have a 120GB drive with 8GB full then the archive will be about 4GB.

You can then get any disk you want and put the image back on to it and your computer is back to normal.

Acronis will also let you restore individual files from an archive.

It's a good program - use it all the time.

NoIdea · 14 Feb 2008 at 12:43

My HD is 500Gb but used is 120GB, So i guess it will still use over 100GB in space to replicate it. My only problem is i havent another HDD with more than 40GB free.

Me thinks i need to invest in one!

this_is_gav · 16 Feb 2008 at 21:12

Hodders said:
Acronis only compresses actual data. Empty space takes up little or no part of the archive.

For example if you have a 120GB drive with 8GB full then the archive will be about 4GB.

You can then get any disk you want and put the image back on to it and your computer is back to normal.

Acronis will also let you restore individual files from an archive.

It's a good program - use it all the time.

With True-Image Home you can do a backup with sector-by-sector backups too, so the image would be much closer to that 120gb. No idea if this is the default option or not, but I'm guessing not. Suppose it's only really useful for software RAID arrays.