It totally depends on how important the data is to you and how many hours,
days or weeks of data you're willing to lose.
If you're dealing with important business or legal documents, I just read
one guy describe his backup schedule as being an incremental backup every
fours hours, and, I believe, a new set started every week, also alternating
storage drives. IOW, every week, whenever you go to wherever it is that you
store your off-site drive and retrieve the other one, when you plug the
other one back in, start an Incremental with a new name (like the date as
yymmdd + "a" [you want a letter to separate the root of the filename from
the digits of increment that get added automatically], plus the extension,
of course.) If there is no file that already has that name root then a new
Full backup is created according to your choices and exclusions (disk,
folders, etc.) After that the Incremental backups get added and the names'
last digit will increase as 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. get added automatically. In
this scenario, the most you lose is a week's work. The least you can lose is
four hours of work.
Unfortunately, I don't see that Acronis Home Edition really has the ability
to do this job decently, unlike the corporate Workstation Edition, which can
be scripted in a very detailed manner. However, I have purchased Home
Edition in order to have knowledge of its mechanisms, so that I have time to
test the true abilities of its Backup Locations' management functions, which
at this moment I don't understand (or trust) completely. Or, from what I've
already learned using the 15-day demo, the user can manually edit the
Scheduled Backup script every week when reconnecting the backup drive that
has been in storage, simply to change the name root. Then leave it connected
and get very frequent backups. With only a little more imagination, Malke's
Full Backup made using a bootable CD could be the root of the rest of the
week's incremental backups. It's going to be an interesting month or two of
testing (unless I want to play with the clock, and I don't feel like doing
that on this machine.)
I know you use partitions to help keep your files sorted. Another option is
to back up each partition separately, lessening the overall risk. You might
only need frequent backups of "Documents" and only daily backups of other
work product (images, videos, etc.) and the System partition. I just means a
little bit more work when setting up for the week's backups.
--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com
"CdLSRN" <> wrote in message
news:emIq1gz%...
> a.. I want to Backup on to external hard drive (1 TB Seagate eSATA
> Barracuda loaded into a CoolGear 3 1/2" enclosure) with Acronis True Image
> 11 Home. (If the SATA doesn't work well for this, the case also has
> firewire
> 800, and USB 2 , and an internal fan).
>
> b.. I have a Dell XPS 420, desktop, with a 750 GB serial ATA 2 hard
> drive at 7200 rpm, and an added 1 TB partitioned hd,Quad6600 (2.40 GHZ),
> dct
> 8mb, 256 mb ati hd 2600 xt video card; 4GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800 MHZ-( 4x1gb),
> Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (Logitech for Dell), Windows Vista Ultimate
> sp1, 32 OS, media card reader with int. bluetooth, ...Avast virus scanner,
> Windows Ultimate firewall, Linksys WRT600 N ,gigabit router with
> firewall,
> 22" flat panel monitor with built in monitor and mike.
> And a 1 TB external backup with e-SATA.
>
> c.. I HAVE a simple and probably stupid question. Where would I
> Install this Acronis Program ?- on C: drive? Or reallocate space on second
> 1TB internal HD and download it there with my data?
>
> d.. Also if anyone is familiar with Acronis 11 Home...could/should
> it be set to add changes as they occur? Do I need a second external HD to
> take out of the home? It seems to me that if I am just going to make an
> image once a week there is no need for a second External drive. I just
> carry
> it back in when I am ready to make another copy.
>
> e.. If virus hits would it affect the hard drive with the OS (DRIVE
> C), or both of the hard drives (internal) OS and all my data?
>
> f.. With my previous computer I got away with never making a backup
> for 10 years, so this is not a familiar process to me.
>
> g.. Acronis® True Image 11 Home system requirements:
> a.. Acronis True Image 11 Home is the easiest, the most convenient
> and intuitive disk imaging, backup and system restore software you've ever
> seen. Its automated, wizard-driven operations make backup and restoration
> simple even for a novice.
>
> System Requirements:
> Windows® Vista;
> Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition;
> Windows® XP SP 2;
> Windows® 2000 Professional SP 4;
> CPU: 300MHz or higher;
> RAM: 256MB or higher;
> Disk space: 300 MB;
> Extra space for installation: 150 MB.
> Supported File Systems:
> b.. FAT16/32, NTFS, Linux Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS, and Linux SWAP;
> Special sector-by-sector support for unknown and corrupted file
> systems.
> For server operating systems backup see Acronis True Image Server
> for Windows
>
> c.. For working on Windows Vista, must meet minimum Vista
> requirements.
>
> d.. REQUIREMENTS-Windows Vista recommended system requirements FOR
> Ultimate
>
> e.. 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
>
> f.. 1 GB of system memory
>
> g.. 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
>
> h.. Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
>
> a.. WDDM Driver
>
> b.. 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
>
> c.. Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
>
> d.. 32 bits per pixel
>
> i.. DVD-ROM drive
>
> j.. Audio Output
>
> k.. Internet access (fees may apply)
>
>
>
>