Looking for programs/software will clone or copy my system drive for immed. recovery?

Hello. I have a question. What is the best software or even the best means for me to make a real time copy or clone of my system hard drive on a separate physical disk to record up-to-the-minute system changes in the event one that my hard drives fail I would then boot into the other system drive on the good physical hard drive and without much effort be back up and running? NOTE: All my installed programs, folder files, files, settings, and configurations would be identical to the hard drive that has the separate system partition that just failed? No loss of work or data. I know I ‘may’ lose the work if not saved at that 'precise moment' the failure occurred, but any work that was saved seconds before the failure would still be on the copy or cloned separate system separate drive or separate system separate drive’s partition.

Paid or free program/software is no issue. I have Windows 7 Professional.

Any ideas as to programs/software you can suggest or a means I am not aware of?

Please reply.

Thank you!

 

Re: Looking for programs/software will clone or copy my system drive for immed. recov

There are many programs that will do what you're requesting - check out the MG Backup section.

It's been my experience, though, that Acronis True Image is hard to beat.

An added plus: it's on sale at the Major Geeks Software Store.

 

Re: Looking for programs/software will clone or copy my system drive for immed. recov

As I understand it you need to set up a RAID1 configuration to achieve what you want, as no imaging system I'm aware of continuously backs up changes to your disks. Rather they do 'snapshots' at points in time that you define, but that will never be 'up to the minute'.

Acronis 2010 (and 2011 I assume) can be set to continuously back up, which in the case of 2010 means every 5 minutes, though many ppl seem to have had serious problems with it.

You can get a basic understanding of RAID1 HERE

 

Re: Looking for programs/software will clone or copy my system drive for immed. recov

You can also get the Acronis program for free by purchasing a Seagate or Western Digital hard drive and downloading the program.
This program will take a snapshot of your computer and you can restore everything (programs and updates) in about 1 hour.

 

Re: Looking for programs/software will clone or copy my system drive for immed. recov

Hello!
I'm not much help, but I thought Windows 7 had it's own back up. Having said that, My choice is Macrium Reflect. Its user friendly and it's freeware. It has saved me many times. I don't think it clones a drive, but takes a snap shot of your OS.
I can put a cold HD in the primary position and be back up and running in about 30 minutes, just like nothing ever happened. I have done that. It uses Linux rescue CD. The paid version comes with Windows PE. It also tells you how to build a Bart PE. I have all three. I'm paranoid.
I keep back up images in three different places.I'm a little paranoid.
The paid version costs 40$ and has a lot more options.
A good back up program is a must.
Arconis is good. I tried it for 30 day free trail.Personally I like Macrium Reflect. It gets the job done for me
oneeyejack!!

 

Re: Looking for programs/software will clone or copy my system drive for immed. recov

Look at the list of "Freeware Alternatives" at the bottom of this article and read the comments as well:
http://dottech.org/shareware-reviews/18620/comment-page-1#comment-52434

 

Re: Looking for programs/software will clone or copy my system drive for immed. recov

I'm a great believer in Acronis too and rely on it completely for disaster recovery. Trouble is, it doesn't do what the OP says he wants -

As I said earlier, a RAID1 setup would fully meet the requirement. RAID1 uses two hard disks and writes everything twice. If one disk fails or errors the system will keep running on the other disk.

 

Re: Looking for programs/software will clone or copy my system drive for immed. recov

Hello! Thanks for all your replies!!!

Wonderful suggestions!! I have friends here!

@all:

I have a few additional questions that have been raised. I have a few that I have numbered for your help.

I see only difference between RAID and Acronis True Image Home 2011 is my 'real time' requirement I am asking for. Yes, I have read that Acronis is good in that you make a 'clone' of the system disk (I see you cannot make a clone ONLY of the partition if you are using a specific part of the disk for your system, you have to clone the WHOLE disk if you wish to 'clone' with Acronis.) and Acronis can image too. I understand what I would do is to first make a clone of the hard disk, then make multiple images of my system between the clone time (when it was performed) and the current time (now). Follow? (1) Makes sense? A system restoration involves booting to the cloned hard drive and then updating your cloned operating system with all the images. I assume your images are stored on YET ANOTHER hard drive that are applied to your cloned operating system to bring your cloned operating system to the current? (2) Am I correct?

(3) I am curious, what is the smallest backup interval a user can select for Acronis???

(4) I should ask does Acronis 'image' EVERYTHING like changes to the operating system, installed programs and applications, data in files and folders, settings and configurations too? ...or only 'image' the data files and folders (that have changed)?

(5) I always thought that 'imaging' is very limited and restrictive unlike 'cloning'?

(6) Does Acronis rename your files and folders in its imaging process to its own nomenclature or leave them they way you named or titled them?

(7) At some point, the imaging files on a established drive or partition has to be getting pretty full if your imaging to another or different local hard disk on your system. What happens after it is full?

Now, regarding RAID, I am new to it first off. I have heard of it and I know very little about it. From what I have read, I see that RAID 'mirrors' another hard drive that is RAID 1.

Okay, is this mirroring process parallel or series, like an electrical circuit? What I mean is that: Data/System Changes -> HDa -> HDb, where 'HD' stands for hard drive and 'a' and 'b' are to denote the different hard drive names (like a series circuit) where the data is sent to hard drive A and then the data is copied from hard drive A to hard drive B. ...or Data/System Changes -> HDa & HDb (like a parallel circuit) where the data is sent to both hard drive A and hard drive B 'separately' and at the same time? I would say if the mirroring process was more like a parallel-like circuit, your recovery rate would be much higher than a series-like circuit. (8) Makes sense? If the process is parallel-like, any corruption on one disk would be independent from the other; so any data that is written to say HDa (This would be my currently functioning hard drive.), it would be written at the same time to the other mirrored hard drive HDb (My cloned so-called ‘back-up’ drive.). If the process is series-like, any corruption on one disk would be copied from the corrupted disk to the HDb mirrored hard drive. (9) Makes sense?

More RAID questions:

(10) Can you mirror the system while you are IN the system? (Reason: Many cloning programs I see that you cannot clone while your INSIDE the system, but you can clone everything else you have like another hard drive or partition.)


(11) Can RAID be set to mirror only hard drive to hard drive components… …or set to set to a specific hard drive partition to a same or another specific hard drive partition?

(12) Obviously an obstacle with operating systems like Windows is malware. Now, if I accidently introduce a virus into my currently functioning system, and I successfully remove it from my currently functioning system; does it remove it also from the mirrored hard drive as well? …or could be still be on the mirrored drive when it was removed from my currently functioning system?

Please reply.

Thank you!

 

Re: Looking for programs/software will clone or copy my system drive for immed. recov

Rather than try to answer you point by point I’ll simply explain what I consider the optimal approach to system and data organisation and backup.

1) Using either a second hard disk or separate partitions, first move all personal data folders off of the system partition, leaving mainly just the OS and your installed software on C

2) Use Acronis or any lookalike such as Macrium Reflect or Easeus Todo to image your system partition to DVDs or to an external drive and do this fairly regularly, like weekly. No need for cloning, just do a full image each time and don’t bother with incremental or differential images. The purpose is to avoid the need to setup again from scratch in the event of a hardware failure or serious software corruption. Thankfully these are pretty rare these days.

3) Use whichever file backup system you want to copy your personal data folders to an external drive or DVDs and do this as often as you consider necessary – in my case it’s done automatically every 12 hours to an NAS using Task Scheduler.

The main advantages of this approach are that your system images are not bloated by your data files, and more importantly, if you should have to restore your system you will not overwrite your current data files with an outdated set. Also, I don’t think it’s a great idea to put the backups of your personal data files into a format that can only be read by certain software, like Acronis. Better to simply have copies in their original format. There are so many options for data backup it’s hopeless trying to enumerate them with their advantages/disadvantages but I just use a synchronisation program which automatically copies selected folders to an external drive to a schedule.

From reading your last post I think we can forget RAID as you just don’t need it. An imaging program – as many other posters suspected – will meet your needs adequately.