Need to know more about backing up (X220)

I am a novice about the whole backup process. I have a modern custom Win 7 computer with a 40 GB SSD C drive for OS & programs and a 1TB D drive primarily for music and photo storage. Currently the D drive has about 300GB of files. The guy who built my puter installed Acronis Home, which I have played with a bit but not really set it up yet to be useful.

I do not have a regular backup procedure and need one. I have a 180GB external HD that I have used to manually transfer most of my photo and music files (drag and drop). But is this external big enough to handle an image of my C and D drives if I delete current content off? How much is the contents of a given drive compressed by imaging software, if at all? If it is not big enough, how big an external should I buy to allow for current and future needs, assuming I add 5000 RAW files and 25 CDs worth of music per year?

If I make an image of D on an external drive (using Acronis or Windows), can I search through folder/file trees on the external drive to search for and access individual photos like I can in Windows--or is the image file a non readable file?

Are there other options for backup other than making an entire partition image? What if I want to back up only new photos and/or new music on a regular schedule (incremental backups)... do I periodically create a new image or use some other type of backup?

Finally, do users prefer using Lenovo B&R for backing up, or Windows utility?

Thanks for any clarifications.

 

Neither. I use Acronis True Image Home to backup the entire drive(s).

 

Yes, I prefer True Image too. I do a clean install when I first get the machine, then make an image, which I use until I get rid of the machine.

 

I don'y use acronis when windows has a system disk backup+.

Renee

 

And how big is your entire drive backup compared to the size of your drive, i.e., is it compressed? And can the backup image be searched for individual files, like on Win Explorer?