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General discussion

Backing up of Hard Drive

Aug 1, 2004 11:36PM PDT

What would be the most reliable software to totally mirror one Hard Drive to another? This is incase one Hard Drive fails, I can just plug in the backup and keep on going.

Discussion is locked

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Re: Backing up of Hard Drive
Aug 2, 2004 12:00AM PDT

The problem is that even plugging in another drive, copying it with Ghost and removing the drive has some risk involved since some may drop the drive or not know about ESD.

It's rare for the hard disk to fail, but very common to delete the wrong file.

Bob

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Re: Backing up of Hard Drive
Aug 2, 2004 11:42PM PDT

The old gray matter is not what it use to be, so if you would, please tell me what ESD stands for? I will probably regret asking this. ... Thanks

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Electro Static Discharge.
Aug 3, 2004 3:11AM PDT

Many will not know to touch a grounded case beyond reaching for the unprotected drive. Some will not place the drive in an antistatic bag.

Type WHAT IS ESD at http://www.google.com for too much information.

bob

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Re: Backing up of Hard Drive
Aug 2, 2004 2:18AM PDT

RAID mirroring. In lieu of that,

Get something like drive copy / partition magic to do drive to drive copies. This is meant to copy small drives to larger drives but will make an exact copy such that you can replace the primary with this drive in a failure. This becomes that drives only use and is time consuming (add a new drive, copy , remove that drive).

Other specialty backup schemes such as Adaptec's NOVASTOR provide images that can be restored from other media such as CD, Tape, DVD or external drives such as firewire or USB.

This leaves those devices for other usages as well and the backup processes can be automated. I found a good external drive on USB makes a great backup system. It is fast and with a bootable CD device easy to reconstruct the system in a catestrophic failure.

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Re: Backing up of Hard Drive
Aug 4, 2004 11:29AM PDT

I like using a Mobile Rack, with the ability to store the backup hardrive in the protective tray, and I can slide it into the computer in seconds. I have had the best results for mirroring with Acronis TrueImage. It takes me only a few minutes to restore my backup to a brand new hardrive, operating system with all programs and data included. Can't tell it's a new hardrive after a 15 minute restore from mirror made on my backup hardrive, which I can remove for safety, in case of fire or theft for eg:.

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Re: Backing up of Hard Drive
Aug 4, 2004 3:02PM PDT

Norton Ghost works rather well.