Image Backup vs. File Backup

First off, let me preface this by stating that I'm a law student, and my entire life as I know it right now is on my computer.

I feel I have a pretty decent data backup system. All the notes I take in class are saved in my Dropbox folder, thus backed up in realtime. I subscibe to Backblaze and have that backup everything worthy on my computer all the time. I also use SyncBack (and looked into the new Genie Timeline) to backup my entire user (home) folder at least once a day.

Now, once I receive my Windows 7 Pro order, I'll also have a clean OS install disk. However, I've been reading up on programs such as Acronis and Ghost. What I'd like to know is, what is truly better? Simple and complete data backup and an OS reinstall, or an image?

I consider myself proficient at wiping hard drives and reinstalling the OS (I do it frequently enough when I screw with my computer). Currently, I've felt that if I lose everything, I'll reinstall Windows and Office immediately (with 7 takes less than a half hour), then copy my data folder from my external drive (and if worse comes to worse, get it online from Backblaze). This entire process should take me 2 hours max, and have me up and running again quickly.

Now, would it be worth it to invest in a program such as Acronis to create image backups in addition? I ask because first, I'm cheap, and second, Acronis seems to not be the most reliable, based on reviews, and is also a terribly clunky program (especially 2010). I'd simply like some feedback on what the pros here prefer: data backup and OS install (no big deal) vs. an image backup (might even take as long as reinstalling Win 7).

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

 

Also, I'd like to know if anyone has tried Genie Timline. Seemed compelling, but after a trial, I went back to SyncBack. Yes it's more complex, but I have it configured perfectly. I also did not like that Timeline uses a proprietary folder structure.

 

Image for the OS/apps partition (partimage, free and on most Linux LiveCDs), file backup for data partition (Robocopy or rsync to external drives).

Restoring the image takes about 20 minutes here (mostly limited by disk speed).

Re: "2 hours max" - You're lucky, I need multiple days to get everything tweaked just right

 

Currently I keep everything on one partition. I never felt the need to keep my data on a different partition because SyncBack syncs my entire user folder to my external drive (aside from music, everything else copies pretty quickly).

As for the two hours max, that's to get the basics (necessary for school) up and running. I'll still spend a few days on all the smaller things. But, I can get Windows, Office, Firefox, antivirus, etc, on pretty quickly.

 

if money is no object shadow protect hands down. imo ive tried everything i can get my hands on and that simply is awesome.. i have never had a bad restore or a issue.

imo acronis is way to bloated and has a lot uneeded junk.. though its a popular choice

the nice thing i like about shadow protect in the image manager. it will take a full and then incrementals at set times each day. then fold all of those into a single daily, then take each daily for the week and fold those into a weekly, then monthly etc... i use this at my business' and its awesome. then you can either choose to restore a previous incremental that has not been combined yet or the main image file it continues to build for you. it also has bare metal restore so if you change hardware or have a mobo die etc you can still restore the image you previously had onto the new hardware.. and as with most you can mount the image as a virtual drive this way if you dont want to say restore the full image but need certain files off of it you can view them and move them to another drive then trash the image if you dont need it.. etc..

overall best there is imo

a good free choice for simple backups is macrium reflect. though it lacks A LOT of features because its a free product but it does a great job for simply image backups

 

I would do the clean install, install ALL of your apps get things just the way you want and then create an image. (I believe Win 7 pro has the ability to make an image itself and create a bootable cd to restore the image.) Then if you have to reinstall, the 2 hours plus a few days becomes 20-40 minutes to restore the machine to a completely operable state.

Where you keep your user data is a personal choice, I prefer to have it on a separate partition. That way latter as I add apps or update the OS I can easily create a new updated image with no user data on it at all. This keeps the size of the image smaller, speeding up image creation and image restore. I keep multiple file level backups for my user data like you do. If you chose to keep it all in one partition, the downside is your image files will be larger and still require you to restore the user data from your file by file backup after an image restore.

Other folks will argue that there is no need for partitions. But I disagree ONLY because there are two types of things we store on hard drives applications (the OS is an application) and data. These two types of things lend themselves to two different types of data management. The first type needs only sporadic refresh of the backup (via images in my case) while the second needs daily refresh of the backup (via file copies in my case). Using partitions is one way to isolate these two types and provide a fast efficient method for maintaining each.

Gary

 

I'd go with the above, setting up Windows 7 just the way you want it with all your needed programs, then making an image from that.

From there, I think its a better idea to have a different program back up your user files and whatnot... 7 Pro comes with a program that does both of these tasks, but I only tried using it once.

 

Thanks for the detailed response. How would you best recommend separating data on a separate partition? I know how to go to the folder's properties and "move" it. Do you keep every single folder in your user folder separate, or just a few (such as documents, music, and photos)? Thanks again!

 

I'm pretty surprised that most people voted for a combination of the two (other system) A constant data backup is the one I prefer.

 

I move the entire documents folder which includes the music and photos as folders under it. I also move my Outlook PST file, since it's data too, but for some reason Microsoft chose NOT to put it in the documents folder. Depending on your OS and version of Outlook it can be in a few different places. Here's how to find it though: http://ask-leo.com/where_is_my_outlook_pst_file_located.html

Close Outlook after you make note of the location. Then find the file and move it where you want it. I have mine in the My Documents folder. Open Outlook and it will complain that it can't find the PST file. But it will give you an option to locate it. Do so, then close Outlook and reopen it. Voilà. You outlook storage is now part of your data.

There are other things that can be considered "user data" stored in odd places under the C:/user/your name structure. But I have been using the scheme outlined in these two posts for 10 years or more and never had to concern myself with any of them even after doing a restore of my image which, of course, overwrote them with very old data (some times several months old). You might want to continue to backup your "home" (user) folder as you are now. I don't bother with that, my daily backup is ONLY the My Documents and it's sub folders. Your way is most assuredly safer, I just never found the need. The only hitch I ever have when restoring an image, is Outlook will complain about using an old version of some file. I forget the specific name. But it tells you exactly and suggests all you need to do is delete the old one, restart Outlook and it will create a new one. I do and it does without any issues.

Gary

 

A data backup implies in this context ONLY the data not the OS and applications. What do you do about those? This differentiation is, I think, why you see most of us saying "combination of the two".

Gary

 

I definitely understand the differentiation between the two. I just never really assumed I'd need an application and OS backup. When I reformat my hard drive, I always do a clean install, download and install the programs I need, then copy my data folder backup over (which is done w/ SyncBack, so I don't have copies of deleted stuff... those get archived separately).

 

Having an image of the apps and OS just makes that initial set of steps MUCH faster. If you create an image after you do the clean install and install the apps etc. you can use that image to restore the machine back to that state in 20-40 minutes depending on your applications list. It is always a LOT faster than installing the OS and apps one by one. That's the only reason I do it. If I were to have to reinstall all the apps we'd be looking at four or five hours of fiddling around. My image restores in about 36 minutes and the only thing I have to do is change DVD's on occasion. (I actually have an image of C: stored on a third partition, so I don't have to pack DVD's with me when I am hundreds or thousands of miles away and need to restore. I have only needed to do that once in ten years, BUT it saved my butt while I was with a client. Better safe than sorry, especially when in front of clients.)

And since I keep my data on a separate partition, I can make new copies of my image after service pack updates, a bunch of Vista updates, installs of new apps etc. Because there is no data on that partition the image creation is smaller and therefore faster. (I even delete my hibernation file and move my page file to another partition right before I image and move them back after, just to reduce the image size.)

Gary

 

My vote- put your OS on one partition, data on another.
Backup the OS partition with a full image backup, whenever something changes, new installs, etc. Backup the data partition incrementally on whatever schedule makes you feel good.

I like an image backup for the OS partition because theoretically you can restore it in one step and be completely back up and running. Since you don't have to do a full image backup every day, it doesn't matter how long it takes.

A data backup should be done pretty frequently so the time it takes can be important, and an incremental backup is faster. Plus if you backup file by file then you have convenient access to all of your files anytime.