Guys Hard Drive backup Question, im using Acronis

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Marcdaddy

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Guys heres what i wish to accomplish, I have setup my Digital Pinball machine and after weeks of work i want to copy by hard drive in the system, It is a 64Gig SSD drive with just one partion, C:drive, I wish to make a Exact replica of the drive with another 64Gig SSD. I want be able to just take this new drive and plug it in if the drive in there fails or get corrupt and im back in buisness. In Acronis would i select CLONE option or do i choose their Backup which makes a Image then i need to make a bootable cd/usb device then restore from there ( which seems like a lot more work ) Thanks guys, If there is another option let me know.
 
If your motherboard allows it, why not just set the Raid array up for raid 1. That way you always have a mirrored drive. If one drive degrades or fails, you have the spare kick in. Also dependent upon your OS, (Lets say Windows 7) you can set up a software mirror in disk management, resulting in a soft raid array with mirroring. Now, I would still use Acronis to backup all of my data, as raid is not an excuse for your only disaster recovery solution.

If your motherboard allows for raid 1, I’d make a total backup of your HDD to another HDD with capacity utilizing Acronis. (Let’s say we’re using an external HDD to place the backup image on.) Then create your raid 1 array (WARNING, This will destroy all data on your SSDs, So create the Acronis backup image 1st!!!) Boot up your Acronis rescue media, and restore the image on the newly created raid 1 array.
For windows 7, creating a software raid 1 array isn’t that hard and not destructive to your disks as the method above. Add your additional disk and open up disk management and follow this handy article. Now keep in mind that software raid requires more resources than raid on your mobo. (see this link for info on setting up a software raid array for windows 7: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/36504/how-to-create-a-software-raid-array-in-windows-7/)

Another note, if your SSDs are running off from an INTEL raid controller, Intel rapid storage technology will introduce TRIM support in version 11.5, due out here in the near future, otherwise you’ll need to rely upon your SSDs native garbage collection cycle – (For raided SSDs only)

Good Luck!
 
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I'm not that familiar with Acronis but I think you would want to clone the drive.

Under no circumstance should RAID 1 be used as a legitimate back up. Any problems with the main drive also get mirrored to the mirrored drive. I learned this one the hard way years ago.
 
You guys are overcomplicating this, just drag the contents of the C: drive onto the backup drive, put the backup drive in a drawer, and then whenever the primary drive fails just swap them out.
 
Angry Birds will that Work? I thought of that first them I said to myself, it can't be that easy could it?
 
It would not boot that way unless something changed in windows that I am unaware of. However this will backup your files.
 
Lord Nassirbannipal said:
This.

It would also miss hidden files and folders.
Click to expand...

Ok so I'll try the Clone feature on Acronis First, then when it's done I'll try to swap drives and see if it boots, if that doesn't work I can try the image then I'd have to restore it if something happens.
 
I'm very familiar with Acronis and you want to do a clone.

If starting from the desktop Acronis will automatically reboot into DOS to copy the system files.

Don't freak out. :)
 
Angry_Birds said:
You guys are overcomplicating this, just drag the contents of the C: drive onto the backup drive, put the backup drive in a drawer, and then whenever the primary drive fails just swap them out.
Click to expand...

This is wrong... what if he has a windows partition the drive?
All the MBR and stuff won't be copied so it's not a "plug and play solution"

You can use Norton Ghost or Acronis to make a 1 to 1 Full Disk copy.
Make sure afterwards that the SSD is aligned
 
Make sure the SSD is aligned? Ok what does they exactly mean then? Thanks for all your help guys btw!
 
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