Suggestions for external hard drive and backup software

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by cjmil5, Oct 20, 2008.

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  1. cjmil5

    cjmil5 Private E-2

    Forgive me if I'm posting this in the wrong place but I need some help before I purchase an external hard drive and backup software. I've depended on Major Geeks for years and know I can count on you guys to advise me on this. I'm fed up with crashing systems, having to do factory re-installs and losing all my programs/data. Looking at spending about $300 and want to make sure I purchase the right stuff.

    I have three laptops and two desktops, all running either Windows XP or Vista. I want to purchase an external hard drive large enough to backup all of these systems. I'm assuming a 500GB or 750GB drive should be sufficient to accommodate all my data. Here's the questions:

    Can I use one external hard drive (assuming it's large enough) to make complete backups (mirror images) of these 5 systems? If yes, how? Is it a matter of partitioning the external drive?

    Again, excuse my ignorance, but is it the external hard drive or the software capabilities that will determine if I can make mirror images of each p.c. hard drive?

    What external hard drive and backup software do you recommend I purchase?

    To be completely clear, I am looking for a backup system that will allow me to resurrect crashed laptops/desktops (including operating systems and program applications).

    Any advice would be appreciated.
     
    cjmil5, Oct 20, 2008
    #1
  2. DavidGP

    DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

    Hi

    Nope this is right place and nice questions.

    YES, I do the same with two desktops and two laptops with no problems, I just make sure on my portable drive that I have folders labeled for what PC the backup/images are from.

    No need to partition the drive as each image is a seperate backup/image file, sample my desktops internal image backup files ( Using Acronis True Image 2009 ).

    [​IMG]

    Its the software

    For the HardDrive I do love Western Digitals externals and the My Book is good and $259 for a 1TB drive or another fav of mine and I have two of these the WD Passports ~ however max capacity of thse are 500GB, so dont know how much all 5 of your PCs in regard to used space they are using? as for Software I recomend Acronis True Image 2009 ( trial version so you can see how it works for you ) so easy to use, just pick Create New Backup from menu, but if you go with Acronis I can type up some instructions, although the manual is easy to follow and downloadable here

    What it does is creates a complete image of your hard drive (Windows all settings and installed software) and its used space, compresses it a little to save some space of the backup drive, to recover the image all you do is boot to the Recovery CD that you create with Acronis, this is a small lite bootable version of Acronis True Image, connect your backup external drive, locate the correct image file and use the restore option, once restored its just like you never had anything go wrong with your PC*

    the above hardware and software will do this as I have used this combination for many years and do a fair amount of beta testing including Windows OSes, so have to wipe and recover to a default install to test senarios, also I use Acronis on my main PC and backup often using Acronis just for that "incase" reason that something may crash and cause the OS to be unfixable.





    *dependent on how often you image backup your HD, if you do this once a week your PC will only be a week old in regards to saved data, installed software etc, if you do this more often then the resulting images will be much newer.
     
    DavidGP, Oct 20, 2008
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  3. cjmil5

    cjmil5 Private E-2

    Thanks so much Halo. That's everything I need to know and I appreciate your quick response!! I've read good reviews about the Western Digital Mybook so I was glad to see you recommend that. Acronis True Image looks like the best option for the software as well. I'll give both a try and see how it goes. Thanks again.
     
    cjmil5, Oct 20, 2008
    #3
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