Last month I highlighted four of the most common backup
approaches used today and compared them to show you why the
Perfect Backup Approach is the best way to do backups. You can
read that article titled, Backup Approaches Compared on my web
site at
www.ugr.com/nl0507b.html . As soon as I sent this
article out, I got messages from users asking why I had not
included other backup approaches in my article. So, this month,
I will add two additional backup approaches and try to explain
where they fit in the comparison.
Internet Backup Approach
Let me start with a fairly new approach to backups that you may
have heard about. Using this approach, you backup a few of your
key data files to a storage location on the Internet. If
something should happen to any of these data files, you can
retrieve them from their Internet location. At first glance,
this approach seems attractive and some have tried it. However,
there are problems with this approach that you should be aware
of.
First, it is by no means a full backup solution for your
computer. You will only be able to backup a few of your data
files using this approach and not your entire hard drive. So, if
your hard drive should crash on you, your internet backup of a
few data files will not help you to get your system back up and
running. You will need to do a total rebuild of your hard drive
including the operating system, all of your application
programs, your setting files, and any of your data files that
you did not store on the Internet. This rebuilding process could
take you days or weeks to complete and you may never get your
computer working again the way it was before.
That places the Internet Backup approach close to the File
Backup approach in the comparisons, but with more restrictions
on it than the File Backup approach. Transferring files to the
Internet is a very slow process. Also, you will be limited to
saving fewer files on the Internet than on an external hard
drive. A minimal amount of Internet space may be provided for
free, but additional space will cost you each month to use it.
Files stored on the Internet will not be quickly and readily
accessible like the files you store on an external hard drive.
Finally, the Internet has too many security issues for my
important files to be placed there.
In summary, I would put the Internet Backup approach at the
bottom of my lists of valid backup approaches. It is a partial
backup solution at best and the number and size of the files
that can use this approach is limited. If you are still
interested in this approach, Acronis True Image 10 Home has the
ability to do backups to FTP (Internet) sites, but pick another
approach and you will be better off.
Differential Backup Approach
Another backup approach I forgot to include was the Differential
Image backup approach added to Acronis True Image 9.0 a couple
of years ago. This approach is quite similar to the Incremental
Image backup approach I recommend in the Perfect Backup
Approach. So, let me explain what this approach is and how it is
different from the Incremental Image backup approach.
With the Incremental Image backup approach you use True Image to
create a full backup image file of your entire hard drive at the
beginning of each month. Then at the end of each week during the
month, you create an incremental backup image file of just the
changes that have occurred to your hard drive since the last
time you backed it up (a week ago). At the beginning of the next
month, you create a new full backup image file and follow it
with incremental backup image files each week. For each month,
the full backup image file combined with the 3-4 incremental
backup images files make up what is called an image set. The
image set can be used by True Image to put the hard drive back
together as it was at the last backup or at any week during the
month (or at any week in prior months). True Image also gives
you the ability to retrieve individual files or folders from any
of these backup points. This is the power and flexibility that
you get with the recommended Incremental Image backup approach.
The Differential Image backup approach is very similar to the
incremental approach. At the beginning of the month, you create
a full backup image of your entire hard drive. Then at each
following week, you create a differential backup image file that
includes the contents of the last differential image file plus
any changes that have occurred to your hard drive in the past
week. The prior differential image file is left on your hard
drive for you to delete after True Image creates a new
differential image file. An image set using the differential
approach includes just two files, the full backup image file and
the latest differential image file. You will notice that the
differential image file is a growing file that collects all of
the changes to the hard drive after the full backup image is
made at the beginning of the month. To make this differential
backup image approach work best, you must delete the prior
differential image file as soon as True Image creates the new
differential image file for you.
How does the differential backup image approach compare to the
incremental backup image approach? The advantage most sited for
differential backup images is that the file space to store the
one differential image is less than storing several incremental
images. As a practical matter, the difference in size is
relatively small and so this is not a big savings. Another
advantage sited for differential image files is that they are
faster to restore since the changes are already merged together
into one image file. In reality, True Image can merge 3-4
incremental images in just a few seconds, so the time savings on
the restore would be just a second or two. Not enough to worry
about. The big disadvantage with the differential image approach
is that you loose the flexibility to restore to a weekly backup
point like you can do with incremental images. With differential
images, you can either restore to the one differential image
file timeframe or back to the full image taken at the beginning
of the month. This is a critical weakness of the differential
image approach and is the main reason I recommend doing
incremental images instead.
To overcome the flexibility limitation of the differential
backup image approach, some users will not delete the old
differential image files, but will let them collect on their
external hard drive, much like you collect the incremental image
files. With many differential image files to select from, you
can pick the exact backup point to restore your files from like
you can do with incremental image files. So, how does this
modified differential backup image approach now compare to the
incremental backup image approach? It costs you space on your
backup hard drive. The first differential image file contains
the changes for week 1. The second differential image file
contains the changes for week 1 and 2. The third differential
image file contains the changes for week 1 and 2 and 3. I think
you get the picture. The result is that the space on your backup
external hard drive is being wasted and hence you cannot save as
many backup images as the incremental backup image approach.
Although the differential backup approach is pretty good, the
incremental backup approach is better in all cases.
Backup Approaches Compared
So, let’s summarize the backup approaches listed in this article
and in the prior article. I will list them along with a ranking
from 1 to 10 of the effectiveness of the backup approach. That
should show why the Perfect Backup Approach (Incremental backup
images) is the best approach to select for your backup plan.
Partial Backup Approaches
-
Internet Backup Approach (effectiveness: 1) A partial backup
solution that is slow and costly.
- File Backup Approach (effectiveness: 2) A partial backup
solution that is a bit faster and less expensive.
Full Backup Approaches
- Clone Backup Approach (effectiveness: 3) A full backup solution
that takes up one hard drive for each backup. Very inefficient
hard drive space usage.
- Full Backup Image Approach (effectiveness: 6) A full backup
solution that can save a few backups on one backup drive.
- Differential Backup Image Approach (effectiveness: 8) A full
backup solution that is fairly efficient on backup hard drive
space. Lacks restore flexibility.
- Incremental Backup Image Approach (effectiveness: 9) A full
backup solution that is very efficient on backup hard drive
space. The Perfect Backup Approach.
Acronis True Image 10 Home
Acronis True Image 10 Home is the one backup utility on the
market that can do all of the backup approaches mentioned in
these two articles. That lets you use one product and try the
various approaches to find the one that best fits your needs.
For this and many other reasons, this backup utility has become
the highest rated backup product on the market by PC Magazine,
PC World, and many other industry experts. You can’t go wrong
with this outstanding product on your system.
To order this excellent
backup utility, go to
www.usergroupstore.com and click on Acronis True Image 10.0
Home. You can purchase this product at our user group discount
price of only $29 as a download or $33 on a CD. If you order the
CD, you also get our Perfect Backup Approach tutorial and some
technical papers on how to install and use the product. The
order code to use when placing your order is UGNL0707.
I hope this information helps you to understand the various ways
that you can backup your computer. Using Acronis True Image 10.0
Home edition and an external hard drive is the best way to go.
If you have questions about this article or the use of your True
Image software, please send a note to gene(at)ugr.com and I will
try to assist you.
Gene Barlow
User Group Relations
gene(at)ugr.com
PO Box 911600
www.ugr.com
St George, UT 84791-1600
www.usergroupstore.com
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