Multi disk total backup options?

Currently my computer contains 4 physical hard drives divided up into 7 partitions!
The physical drives are 2 x 250GB SATA 1 x 120GB PATA 1 X 80GB PATA.
I am not using RAID and have the discs installed the 'old fashioned' way.

I'm looking for a cheap total backup solution.

I'm thinking perhaps I could get a 1TB e-SATA drive and partition it up as a 'mirror' of my 7 partitions and get some sort of software to ghost my whole system to the external drive and then, once this has been done the once to write any incremental changes to the relevant part of the external drive.

Is there any software that does this?

Are there better, cheaper, solutions?

N.B. I'm assuming that you're using Windows and that most of the partitions are simple 'data' partitions (i.e. a collection of data files such as videos or music). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I recommend Acronis True Image (latest version is 11) to create a backup of your 'system' partitions (i.e. where Windows is installed). Once you've created a master image you can create incremental backups: much smaller images with just the changes since the last backup. To restore the system, you restore the master image and each incremental image in turn.

This has the advantage of being relatively quick but you can end up with quite a few image files. It can worth creating a new master image say every few months and weekly incremental backups.

True Image is £40 on their site, or you can buy it boxed from Amazon for £28.

For the data partitions, I would recommend backing up the files individually. Create a folder on the 1TB e-SATA drive for each partition and keep a synchronised copy of the files there.

On Linux there is a great tool for this called rsync which 'synchronises files and directories from one location to another while minimizing data transfer using delta encoding when appropriate'. This essentially means that if you have a 1GB file and make changes, rsync will try to copy only the part of the file that was modified.

I've heard good things about DeltaCopy which is a Windows wrapper for rsync. You might find that useful.

Hope this helps. Sorry I couldn't post any links as a new member.

The native windows backup utility

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Originally Posted by peterb

The native windows backup utility

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Like you suggested in Gibbo's other identical thread here?


Honestly, as of now cross posters get no response from me in either thread.

I'm guessing the reason for the duplicate post is something to do with getting a high post count... :s

No matter, the above advice is good. True Image is a good option, and you can get it cheaper by ordering from the US site directly. The US dollar offers a very good conversion rate :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Splash

Like you suggested in Gibbo's other identical thread here?


Honestly, as of now cross posters get no response from me in either thread.

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Probably :) (There have been a number of backup questions of late - in most cases the native Windows Backup utility will do the job - no need to buy anything extra - and for cloning, a Linux live CD and the dd command works well.)