Make an Exact Replica of Hard Drive

[Eamonn]

My client who is running Win7 64Bit wants me to clone his HD to a second internal HD and create a backup so his second HD will always be an exact copy of his main HD. Both are 1TB hard drives

In the event of a failure of his main drive he wants to be able to simply use the second drive as his bootdrive and continue working as before without losing any data.

I have used Acronis True Image Home to clone his drive and have created a scheduled backup using the option "Use Backup Assistant" which protects your system and documents with one click. This backs up "My Computer", "Files and Folders" or "E-Mail". I have selected to back up "My Computer" using "Non stop Protection"

Is this the best way to do it or should I use the "Disk and Partition Backup"?

 

[eric76]

You should use Disk and Partition Backup if he wants to be prepared for the worst case.

 

[14049752]

I'm pretty sure that you could just set up Windows 7's software raid. It'd be 100% seamless to the customer and no extra software is needed.

 

[Paul Rodgers]

RAID 1 configuration would be the easiest. I suggest a hardware RAID if possible.

 

[Trenatos]

Definately RAID.
fillertext

 

[14049752]

RAID 1 configuration would be the easiest. I suggest a hardware RAID if possible.

This would be tough without a reinstall, unless it's already set up to boot from a hardware raid controller. With Windows 7 software raid, you can convert C: to a dynamic disk, add another drive, then set up mirroring without reinstalling.

 

[Eamonn]

Thanks for all the reply's, raid was not something I had even thought about before now but I dont really want to reinstall his system for raid to work.

Is the setup I have good enough and to safeguard his PC. It seems to be backing up fine and I have disconnected the main drive as a test and its booting fine from the backup drive with all his files intact.

My only fear is that it wont back up his desktop as he tends to leave a lot of unfinished photoshop files there every day.

 

[eric76]

Thanks for all the reply's, raid was not something I had even thought about before now but I dont really want to reinstall his system for raid to work.

Is the setup I have good enough and to safeguard his PC. It seems to be backing up fine and I have disconnected the main drive as a test and its booting fine from the backup drive with all his files intact.

My only fear is that it wont back up his desktop as he tends to leave a lot of unfinished photoshop files there every day.

That's exactly why I said to back up the whole computer.

 

[Paul Rodgers]

Thanks for all the reply's, raid was not something I had even thought about before now but I dont really want to reinstall his system for raid to work.

Is the setup I have good enough and to safeguard his PC. It seems to be backing up fine and I have disconnected the main drive as a test and its booting fine from the backup drive with all his files intact.

My only fear is that it wont back up his desktop as he tends to leave a lot of unfinished photoshop files there every day.

I haven't done this before, but I believe it would work without any problems if you had the RAID drivers installed before cloning.

Purchase a drive cloning suite like Acronis and clone the drive that Windows is on to a third drive. Then configure the hardware RAID and clone the data to the newly configured RAID setup.

Not the quickest solution, but I think it is the best one in terms of reliability.

 

[Knightsman]

Thanks for all the reply's, raid was not something I had even thought about before now but I dont really want to reinstall his system for raid to work.

Is the setup I have good enough and to safeguard his PC. It seems to be backing up fine and I have disconnected the main drive as a test and its booting fine from the backup drive with all his files intact.

My only fear is that it wont back up his desktop as he tends to leave a lot of unfinished photoshop files there every day.

This is why he should do an online backup or backup files to a secondary external drive. Install backed up drive, then transfer/download the newest files over

 

[Eamonn]

Thanks Eric, does Disk and Partition Backup do a different or better job than the setup i have at present?

 

[eric76]

Thanks Eric, does Disk and Partition Backup do a different or better job than the setup i have at present?

Yes - it backs up a complete image of the computer - including the operating system. If you have a problem you can get files or if you need to, you can restore the whole computer. Set it up for nightly backups and you'll never have to worry.

Good luck!

 

[Eamonn]

Using this backup can i unplug his main drive and boot the system from his backup drive and continue working as if i had booted from the main drive with all the files as they were on the main drive.
This is what he wants to do if his main drive crashes at any time in the future?