grichie5

My computer has three internal hard drives.
Drive C, the boot drive is an SSD on which I keep my programs. It is only changed when I add or remove a program.
Drive D is a conventional drive on which I keep all of my current data; current year images, documents and downloads. It is accessed and modified frequently.
Drive F is a large conventional drive on which I keep my “archives.” Pre 2020 images, documents, downloads, etc. etc. At the end of the year, I move current data from D drive to this storage drive.
I had been making regular backups of all three drives, using Acronis. I am wondering about a new scheme and seeking comment. The new plan would involve making a backup of my C drive on a separate bootable storage media and only create a new backup when I have added or deleted a program to or from the c drive.
Basically, the same for the F or storage drive; a fresh backup when changes are made, rather infrequently.
D drive, which is accessed frequently would be backed to bootable media regularly as per a schedule.
The drive most likely to give a problem is the C or boot drive, and if this happened, the media containing its backup could be plugged in, the computer booted from this drive and a restore made of the operating system and programs.
Of course, I could make a separate back up, on separate media as a spare, of the C, D and F drives occasionally just for added insurance.

Any comments appreciated! What am I missing?

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

What backup media and application? Also, do you plan a 3rd off-site disaster recovery (DR) copy? If not, you should.

TBPJr Loc: South Carolina

The only thing I believe you must rethink slightly is your C: drive--your programs and applications write a lot of data to that drive every time you use them. For example, email programs save their data within the program directory (I have moved my email and other changing files to a different drive--I don't know whether your program will allow it or not). Word processors typically retain your personalizations of whatever sort to their directories, unless you force them to elsewhere (and this includes the program directory as the default directory for documents, templates, autocorrect entries, and autotext entries). Most other programs will do the same, unless you take steps to avoid it. It's certainly up to you how important any of that is, and what to do about it.

The only other suggestion I would offer is to consider RAID 1 mirrored drives for each of your disks. I have been very grateful more than once for a complete, up-to-date copy of my OS and programs or of my data that can be rebuilt into another mirrored set when one drive fails; the process is seamless and allows you to continue working while it takes place (I use software RAID). That really is not a backup, as physical damage to your system can get to all the drives--backups need to go to another location to be secure. Finally, mirrored drives cost twice as much (you have to buy two of each) and take up twice as many resources, so that can be a drawback; to me, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

grichie5

[quote=TriX]What backup media and application? Also, do you plan a 3rd off-site disaster recovery (DR) copy? If not, you should.[/quote

I have used Acronis for many years and have used various devices as media. The "main": device is a 4 gb external hard drive. IU have used M2 PLce ssd's in external cases for backups of specific drives. Now I hope to the hard drive for regular D drive periodic backups, and the M2 devices for the "one shot" backups.

So far I have not used any third off site DR facilities since my work is not commercial.

grichie5

Thanks for your suggestions. I use Microsoft Outlook for my e mail and its PST file is stored on the C drive. Since there are risks in trying to move this file to another drive, I have planned on making a periodic scheduled backups of just this file from the C drive.

As I continue to age, I rarely use other programs that create data such as Word, Excel or Access, mainly Photoshop and Lightroom. If these become damaged, they can be re downloaded. My current images are stored on the D drive.

I have never found the need to go to the expense of a raid system, although it can be bullet proof.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

My opinion is that your backup strategy is fine, but unless your data is worthless and you are willing to lose all of it instantly, then you should consider an off site DR copy, such as cloud storage. I could spend a paragraph delineating all the things that can cause both your primary storage and backup to fail, or I could list all the threads where the OP’s data was saved by the DR copy, but the decision is yours. Only you know what your data and time is worth.

Btw, be sure to include your download folder in your regular backup - it will allow you to easily reinstall all your aps if you need to reinstall or rebuild your OS.

grichie5

Appreciate the thoughts and will look into it. Probably foolish to have may thousands of dollars of camera equipment and hesitate to spend a few dollars a year on cloud storage.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

I would just add for the other readers that while a RAID system can be more reliable than a single drive, they are by no means bulletproof. Double drive and RAID controller failures do occur, and they are no protection against file system corruption.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Very clear and insightful thinking. All that thousands of dollars of equipment has a single purpose - to create data.

grichie5

On a personal note, we once lived in Pamlico County, near Oriental, about three hours east of you.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Cool - I used to sail out of Oriental MANY years ago. Are you getting heavy rain from Bertha?

grichie5

No rain today at all. We actually lived in Whortonsville, a town of 85 people, 8 miles north of Oriental. We had 18 acres of land and 1500 feet of waterfront on Browns Creek. Moved to Florida when we got old enough to be allowed in.
Grichie5@comcast.net

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

I have used Acronis for 15 years and have recovered my OS drive a few times. My drives are similar and I also have three internal drives. I have an Acronis bootable media on a flash drive and have used it a few times to recover my OS drive. Since Acronis makes that available in "Tools" of the main menu, why do you feel it is necessary to have your entire OS drive on a bootable media? That's the purpose of having a recoverable backup. Just my thinking.
Mark

Indi Loc: L. I., NY, Palm Beach Cty when it's cold.

If you have Acronis, you can CLONE you’re C drive (or any of your drives) to an external drive.
Note that you can’t clone all your drives to one external drive unless you partition it and it’s large enough to hold all the data from all your drives.
You won’t have to make “Bootable Media” because the cloned drive is an exact duplicate of your C drive.
If need be you could swap drives or use Acronis to “Clone the cloned drive” to a new drive.

grichie5

Thanks for your response. Perhaps my explanation was not clear. I did create an Acronis backup of my C drive on a bootable usb device. The thought is that if there is a failure, I can boot from that drive and it will give immediate access to the Acronis backup of my C drive. This is in addition to my regular backups of the computer.

It may be a belt and suspenders approach, but if your paranoid, there is never enough security.