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#17
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BackUp for HD Replacement
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , writes: Thanks all for great info. I went with Macrim Reflect to a USB flash drive. I had been doing backups of critical data to CD, but wanted something easy to cover the whole PC. It's a lot quicker (making an image that is) if you keep your data separate from your OS-and-installed-software, either on a separate partition or a separate drive. (You don't need to include the data partition/drive in an _image_ [though still back it up of course, by whatever means you like]). But the tradeoff obviously is you now need to keep *two* backups, instead of one. And if you're using SATA drives, it doesn't take TOO long to backup the whole enchilada, unless you are talking about also backing up large libraries of video and audio files (at least that's the case for me over here). |
#18
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BackUp for HD Replacement
In message , Bill in Co
writes: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , writes: Thanks all for great info. I went with Macrim Reflect to a USB flash drive. I had been doing backups of critical data to CD, but wanted something easy to cover the whole PC. It's a lot quicker (making an image that is) if you keep your data separate from your OS-and-installed-software, either on a separate partition or a separate drive. (You don't need to include the data partition/drive in an _image_ [though still back it up of course, by whatever means you like]). But the tradeoff obviously is you now need to keep *two* backups, instead of one. And if you're using SATA drives, it doesn't take TOO long to backup the whole enchilada, unless you are talking about also backing up large libraries of video and audio files (at least that's the case for me over here). It does take a long time if you're using external drives (I doubt anyone is still using EIDE these days, for W7+ anyway), and only have USB2. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Have you ever heard about a petition, disagreed with it, but been frustrated that there's no way you can *show* that you disagree? If so, have a look at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/232770 - and please pass it on if you agree, especially to twitter, facebook, gransnet/mumsnet, or any such forum. If you carry on hating, you're the one who's damaged. - Sir Harold Atcherley, sent to the Burma/Siam railway in April 1943 |
#19
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BackUp for HD Replacement
In message , Bill in Co
writes: Ken Blake wrote: [] I agree with everything you say except for "a more difficult option." In general it's not more difficult, it's impossible. Most programs have many associated files and entries within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Yes, there's an occasional exception that can be backed up, but they are few and far between. So it safest to assume that all your programs can not be backed up, and make other plans for getting them back should they be lost. I wasn't sure what you meant by "its impossible to back them up" (??). Because you just need to make a image or clone backup of your main drive to do this. IOW, either make an image backup of the C: partition, OR a clone backup of your C: drive, and I think you'll be all set. And that's what I do over here (using Acronis True Image), and it sure has come in handy, on occasion. But maybe I misread something. I think Ken meant it's (in most cases) impossible to _individually_ back up - copy - most software installations, as you can with individual data files or folders. And I'd agree (and wouldn't even try); I _image_ my C: (and any hidden partitions), which contains my OS and installed softwares, and _copy_ (albeit with SyncToy to speed the process) my data. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Have you ever heard about a petition, disagreed with it, but been frustrated that there's no way you can *show* that you disagree? If so, have a look at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/232770 - and please pass it on if you agree, especially to twitter, facebook, gransnet/mumsnet, or any such forum. If you carry on hating, you're the one who's damaged. - Sir Harold Atcherley, sent to the Burma/Siam railway in April 1943 |
#20
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BackUp for HD Replacement
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co writes: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , writes: Thanks all for great info. I went with Macrim Reflect to a USB flash drive. I had been doing backups of critical data to CD, but wanted something easy to cover the whole PC. It's a lot quicker (making an image that is) if you keep your data separate from your OS-and-installed-software, either on a separate partition or a separate drive. (You don't need to include the data partition/drive in an _image_ [though still back it up of course, by whatever means you like]). But the tradeoff obviously is you now need to keep *two* backups, instead of one. And if you're using SATA drives, it doesn't take TOO long to backup the whole enchilada, unless you are talking about also backing up large libraries of video and audio files (at least that's the case for me over here). It does take a long time if you're using external drives (I doubt anyone is still using EIDE these days, for W7+ anyway), and only have USB2. You can get external drives with eSATA. If you're still using USB2 for backups, you don't know what you're missing (in terms of speedy backups and restores). :-) |
#21
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BackUp for HD Replacement
In message , Shadow
writes: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 09:31:59 -0500, wrote: Sooner or later, hopefully much later, my spinning HD will need replacement with another or a whole new PC. Is there a way to back up, the current substantial HD apps and data material, to facilitate this inevitability ? I don't want to ever be faced with the daunting, if not impossible task, of reinstalling everything with data. Probably involve the cloud or other storage device. Good advice most welcome and thanks. Aomei Backupper Free has always worked for me. https://www.backup-utility.com/changelog.html Choose "standard". And you'll need a new disk. []'s When you say "has always worked", does that include _restoring_ (either because a drive died or because you wanted to fit a bigger and/or faster one)? -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Have you ever heard about a petition, disagreed with it, but been frustrated that there's no way you can *show* that you disagree? If so, have a look at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/232770 - and please pass it on if you agree, especially to twitter, facebook, gransnet/mumsnet, or any such forum. If you carry on hating, you're the one who's damaged. - Sir Harold Atcherley, sent to the Burma/Siam railway in April 1943 |
#22
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BackUp for HD Replacement
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:30:01 -0700, "Bill in Co"
surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote: Ken Blake wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 19:23:18 -0400, pjp wrote: In article , says... Sooner or later, hopefully much later, my spinning HD will need replacement with another or a whole new PC. Is there a way to back up, the current substantial HD apps and data material, to facilitate this inevitability ? I don't want to ever be faced with the daunting, if not impossible task, of reinstalling everything with data. Probably involve the cloud or other storage device. Good advice most welcome and thanks. Backing up your data (e.g files you yourself have created or somehow else put on the computer) is easy if you keep them in any kind of organized order on hard disk. Simply copy the files to an external hard disk big enough to hold them. Mail, passowrds etc. you can export out of the app to some usable format and then copy tyhose file(s) in similar manner. Your installed programs can be a more difficult option to "just" back them up. In general you can't as they are installed into the operating system with often many of the required files placed in "Windows" sub- folders and not simply the the apps installed folder. They usually don't provide any listing of what those files are. On top of that many apps get installed to a specific OS, e.g. XP, Vista, 7 or 10 and will install differnt support files depending upon the os involved. That means any "restore" must be to the same OS, e,g XP to XP. "portable" apps are about the only ones can easily just copy and paste into another system. I agree with everything you say except for "a more difficult option." In general it's not more difficult, it's impossible. Most programs have many associated files and entries within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Yes, there's an occasional exception that can be backed up, but they are few and far between. So it safest to assume that all your programs can not be backed up, and make other plans for getting them back should they be lost. I wasn't sure what you meant by "its impossible to back them up" (??). Because you just need to make a image or clone backup of your main drive to do this. IOW, either make an image backup of the C: partition, OR a clone backup of your C: drive, and I think you'll be all set. And that's what I do over here (using Acronis True Image), and it sure has come in handy, on occasion. But maybe I misread something. Yes, you can back up Windows by imaging or cloning, and if you do that, yes, you also have a backup of your installed programs. But you can *not* back up the programs by themselves, and that's what I meant. When I say "make other plans for getting them back should they be lost," what you suggest (imaging or cloning the drive) is a good example of such another plan. Similarly, there is a fair number of people who use a separate partition for installed programs. They mostly do that because they think that if they ever have to or want to reinstall Windows, they will at least keep all their programs. They are wrong, for the reason I explained above. |
#23
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BackUp for HD Replacement
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 00:41:16 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote: In message , Bill in Co writes: Ken Blake wrote: [] I agree with everything you say except for "a more difficult option." In general it's not more difficult, it's impossible. Most programs have many associated files and entries within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Yes, there's an occasional exception that can be backed up, but they are few and far between. So it safest to assume that all your programs can not be backed up, and make other plans for getting them back should they be lost. I wasn't sure what you meant by "its impossible to back them up" (??). Because you just need to make a image or clone backup of your main drive to do this. IOW, either make an image backup of the C: partition, OR a clone backup of your C: drive, and I think you'll be all set. And that's what I do over here (using Acronis True Image), and it sure has come in handy, on occasion. But maybe I misread something. I think Ken meant it's (in most cases) impossible to _individually_ back up - copy - most software installations, as you can with individual data files or folders. Exactly, as I just said. And I'd agree (and wouldn't even try); I _image_ my C: (and any hidden partitions), which contains my OS and installed softwares, and _copy_ (albeit with SyncToy to speed the process) my data. |
#24
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BackUp for HD Replacement
"Bill in Co" surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote
|If you're still using USB2 for | backups, you don't know what you're missing (in terms of speedy backups and | restores). :-) | I still have USB2. I have USB3 ports but haven't looked into whether I can get them to work with XP. I only regularly back up a 1 GB partition of changeable data. There's no reason to back up the OS. There's no reason to back up 100 GB of photos that are alrady backed up. It's true that doing it that way involves more than one backup. I don't find that a hassle. My XP OS with software fits on a CD. Win7 with software fits on 2 DVDs. I don't have to back it up again. That's the point. It doesn't change, or if it does it's just an update or new software here or there. So one pristine backup (copied to various locations) is all you need and it's done for years to come. With your whole disk backup you're doing it all every time. And what if your backup has bugs or malware? Why would you assume that every week your 3 year old system is still in good shape? That defeats the whole purpose of backup. You could easily be copying a system with a fatal flaw to your backup disk. |
#25
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BackUp for HD Replacement
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:41:31 -0700, "Bill in Co"
surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: It does take a long time if you're using external drives (I doubt anyone is still using EIDE these days, for W7+ anyway), and only have USB2. You can get external drives with eSATA. If you're still using USB2 for backups, you don't know what you're missing (in terms of speedy backups and restores). :-) I liked eSATA, but it seems to have died in the marketplace and has all but disappeared in favor of USB3 (USB3.1 Gen 1, which used to be called USB 3.0, and USB 3.1 Gen 2). -- Char Jackson |
#26
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BackUp for HD Replacement
Mayayana wrote:
"Bill in Co" surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote If you're still using USB2 for backups, you don't know what you're missing (in terms of speedy backups and restores). :-) I still have USB2. I have USB3 ports but haven't looked into whether I can get them to work with XP. I only regularly back up a 1 GB partition of changeable data. There's no reason to back up the OS. There's no reason to back up 100 GB of photos that are alrady backed up. It's true that doing it that way involves more than one backup. I don't find that a hassle. My XP OS with software fits on a CD. Win7 with software fits on 2 DVDs. I don't have to back it up again. That's the point. It doesn't change, or if it does it's just an update or new software here or there. So one pristine backup (copied to various locations) is all you need and it's done for years to come. With your whole disk backup you're doing it all every time. And what if your backup has bugs or malware? Why would you assume that every week your 3 year old system is still in good shape? That defeats the whole purpose of backup. You could easily be copying a system with a fatal flaw to your backup disk. I'll typically make a new image backup of C: every week or two, OR just before I want to try out some new program, in case things go south. My C: partition has about 50 GB of stuff in it, and it only takes about 15 minutes to do this. And since I'm mostly retired, I don't need to back up personal data very frequently. However, my large collections of music and video files are rarely changed a whole lot, and they are on different partitions, so I don't back those up except when I do a complete backup clone of my main drive (which includes everything), typically every three months. That takes less than an hour. The advantage of my particular approach (using image and clone backups) is that any time I change anything on my C: drive, it will be saved in the image backup, and I don't have to think at all about what things were or were not backed up, since they all were. And it takes about 15 minutes or so to save this whole enchilada, and there is no need to worry about what is or isn't being backed up this way. True, I don't back up changes on a daily basis, but I can live with that. Oh, and I have more than one generational image backup just in case I later find it wasn't so good afterall. Now, as to your point that I am wasting time and space backing up some things that are never going to change, I can't dispute that. But the other side of the coin is there is nothing hidden that I might have forgotten about this way, so I've got my bases pretty much covered (unless truly need daily or more frequent backups of some selective things, which might be true for some) |
#27
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BackUp for HD Replacement
Char Jackson wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:41:31 -0700, "Bill in Co" surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: It does take a long time if you're using external drives (I doubt anyone is still using EIDE these days, for W7+ anyway), and only have USB2. You can get external drives with eSATA. If you're still using USB2 for backups, you don't know what you're missing (in terms of speedy backups and restores). :-) I liked eSATA, but it seems to have died in the marketplace and has all but disappeared in favor of USB3 (USB3.1 Gen 1, which used to be called USB 3.0, and USB 3.1 Gen 2). Interesting to hear that. I'm still using Windows XP for the most part, and have a couple of SATA backup drives in enclosures for my backups. I'm not even sure how well the USB3 approach would work out for a Windows XP computer in practice. I suppose one could look for USB 3 cards and USB 3 drives in enclosures, but I'm not sure it would really be worth it. And that's assuming that it all worked out properly on an XP system (i.e at full USB 3 speed). |
#28
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BackUp for HD Replacement
Ken Blake wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:30:01 -0700, "Bill in Co" surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote: Ken Blake wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 19:23:18 -0400, pjp wrote: In article , says... Sooner or later, hopefully much later, my spinning HD will need replacement with another or a whole new PC. Is there a way to back up, the current substantial HD apps and data material, to facilitate this inevitability ? I don't want to ever be faced with the daunting, if not impossible task, of reinstalling everything with data. Probably involve the cloud or other storage device. Good advice most welcome and thanks. Backing up your data (e.g files you yourself have created or somehow else put on the computer) is easy if you keep them in any kind of organized order on hard disk. Simply copy the files to an external hard disk big enough to hold them. Mail, passowrds etc. you can export out of the app to some usable format and then copy tyhose file(s) in similar manner. Your installed programs can be a more difficult option to "just" back them up. In general you can't as they are installed into the operating system with often many of the required files placed in "Windows" sub- folders and not simply the the apps installed folder. They usually don't provide any listing of what those files are. On top of that many apps get installed to a specific OS, e.g. XP, Vista, 7 or 10 and will install differnt support files depending upon the os involved. That means any "restore" must be to the same OS, e,g XP to XP. "portable" apps are about the only ones can easily just copy and paste into another system. I agree with everything you say except for "a more difficult option." In general it's not more difficult, it's impossible. Most programs have many associated files and entries within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Yes, there's an occasional exception that can be backed up, but they are few and far between. So it safest to assume that all your programs can not be backed up, and make other plans for getting them back should they be lost. I wasn't sure what you meant by "its impossible to back them up" (??). Because you just need to make a image or clone backup of your main drive to do this. IOW, either make an image backup of the C: partition, OR a clone backup of your C: drive, and I think you'll be all set. And that's what I do over here (using Acronis True Image), and it sure has come in handy, on occasion. But maybe I misread something. Yes, you can back up Windows by imaging or cloning, and if you do that, yes, you also have a backup of your installed programs. But you can *not* back up the programs by themselves, and that's what I meant. Right. Got it. When I say "make other plans for getting them back should they be lost," what you suggest (imaging or cloning the drive) is a good example of such another plan. Similarly, there is a fair number of people who use a separate partition for installed programs. They mostly do that because they think that if they ever have to or want to reinstall Windows, they will at least keep all their programs. They are wrong, for the reason I explained above. And the idea of just trying to back up the programs themselves is a bit of an enigma to me. :-) (well, ok, with one exception: one could choose to just save the exe program file itself. But - that's about it. :-) And good luck to those (illusively) trying to save the programs on another partition and just backing that up, whilst forgetting about C: They've only got part of the story. :-) |
#29
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BackUp for HD Replacement
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co writes: Ken Blake wrote: [] I agree with everything you say except for "a more difficult option." In general it's not more difficult, it's impossible. Most programs have many associated files and entries within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Yes, there's an occasional exception that can be backed up, but they are few and far between. So it safest to assume that all your programs can not be backed up, and make other plans for getting them back should they be lost. I wasn't sure what you meant by "its impossible to back them up" (??). Because you just need to make a image or clone backup of your main drive to do this. IOW, either make an image backup of the C: partition, OR a clone backup of your C: drive, and I think you'll be all set. And that's what I do over here (using Acronis True Image), and it sure has come in handy, on occasion. But maybe I misread something. I think Ken meant it's (in most cases) impossible to _individually_ back up - copy - most software installations, as you can with individual data files or folders. And I'd agree (and wouldn't even try); I _image_ my C: (and any hidden partitions), which contains my OS and installed softwares, and _copy_ (albeit with SyncToy to speed the process) my data. Yup, got it now. I misread that part. In fact, it didn't even occur to me that someone would try to attempt to do this (just back up some specific program installation and nothing else). |
#30
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BackUp for HD Replacement
Bill in Co wrote:
Char Jackson wrote: On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:41:31 -0700, "Bill in Co" surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote: J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: It does take a long time if you're using external drives (I doubt anyone is still using EIDE these days, for W7+ anyway), and only have USB2. You can get external drives with eSATA. If you're still using USB2 for backups, you don't know what you're missing (in terms of speedy backups and restores). :-) I liked eSATA, but it seems to have died in the marketplace and has all but disappeared in favor of USB3 (USB3.1 Gen 1, which used to be called USB 3.0, and USB 3.1 Gen 2). Interesting to hear that. I'm still using Windows XP for the most part, and have a couple of SATA backup drives in enclosures for my backups. I'm not even sure how well the USB3 approach would work out for a Windows XP computer in practice. I suppose one could look for USB 3 cards and USB 3 drives in enclosures, but I'm not sure it would really be worth it. And that's assuming that it all worked out properly on an XP system (i.e at full USB 3 speed). Absolutely it's worth it. I have a USB3 card in this machine, with the NEC/Renesas chip on it. Since I didn't waste any money on optimization, I get around 200MB/sec out of it. That beats 30MB/sec for USB2 by a factor of 6. The backup itself won't run that fast. Stuff may compete with your I/O. But the I/O rate should easily be higher than 30MB/sec, so the USB3 does help. There was a WinXP driver for the NEC chip I got. The mini-CD that comes with the card, could have WinXP/Vista/Win7 drivers, but check the advert for proof a newer chip has all three of those. Win8.1 and Win10 have USB3 already. If Asmedia made a new chip this year, they might decide not to include anything but a Win7 driver on a mini-CD in the box. USB3 solutions come in "classes". If you had a slot with x1 PCI Express Revision 1.1, then the card won't run all that fast. If you buy a "USB3.1 Rev2" card, one which has two PCI Express lanes wired (and the connector shape is an x4), that allows the max_rate of USB3 (original) to be achieved. You might get 450MB/sec with UASP mode transfers to a USB3 + SSD for example. That's how a home user retrofits "Intel chipset level performance" into an older platform (might need to use the video slot). Such a performance level might be required to run a Black Magic USB3 video capture box. (The original version of USB3, is also known as USB3.1 Rev1, while the 2x faster version is USB3.1 Rev2.) But again, the backup isn't likely to go that fast. USB3.2 is for USB C connectors, and has two USB3.1 lanes on the same connector, for yet another doubling of rate. There's no evidence anyone is promoting it yet. There's no "buzz" that I could detect. The numbers here are intended to indicate the notion of "classes" of performance. Exact numbers could vary. The DMI bus is x4 lanes wide, which is why it's not a bottleneck. USB3 aka USB3.1 Rev1 500MB/sec (minus overhead) PCIe Rev1.1 180-200MB/sec PCIe Rev2 400MB/sec Intel SB DMI 450MB/sec USB3.1 Rev2 1000MB/sec (scaling as HW buses permit) USB3.2 on C 2000MB/sec (scaling as HW buses permit) The backup could do compression, which can slow it down. The backup is probably running an MD5, so that later "Verify" operations have a reference value to use. These things might cap performance at 300MB/sec theoretical best. You can do CRC32 as a checksum, at 1.5GB/sec, but not too many disk related things do that. CRC32 is good for network packets. The UASP driver gives a slight bump in performance level. That's a "SCSI" stack of some sort. I don't have info on which OSes support UASP. The SCSI stack has been in Windows forever, so that part (the base of the stack) isn't a limiting factor. The SCSI stack is how "foreign objects" can inject their stack. (You might remember some SATA cards doing two driver cycles, and one of the drivers was a SCSI stub.) Paul |
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