Software to make duplicate/mirror hard-drive image

[Jim 5]

I have had a few issues over the years with hard drives failing. Given all the trouble and waste of time this causes, I would like to install a second (slave) hard drive of equal capacity to my existing one, then make an exact image of my current hard drive on a daily/incremental basis.

In this way, my hope would be that if my hard drive fails, not only will I not have to risk losing my documents/photos/music, but I also won't have to reload my operating system, software, preferences, bookmarks etc. The intention would be that I remove the failed hard-drive, move it into the master position re-boot my computer and be on my way. Next, I'd just have to buy a new hard drive to replace the one that failed, run the back up application and I'm really only out the cost of a new hard drive and the time of removing/buying/installing.

Is there a software application out there that can achieve this goal? Any help or experience would be very much appreciated. I have looked at Norton Ghost, but it is my understanding that it doesn't work in this way. It needs to be simple for someone like me.

 

[MGregoir]

I think a better result for what you are trying to do would be installing a second hard drive identical to that which you have, and setting up a RAID 1 array.

RAID 1 automatically mirrors both your hard disks, and your computer sees it as one. That way if either of the two disks fail, you have the redundant hard drive with all the same data to keep things safe and operable. Most newer computers are capable of it in some form.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Yup, looks like RAID 1 is what you want.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Standard_levels

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/singleLevel1-c.html

The performance may take a slight hit as most home-based machines have it implemented on software level rather than hardware level, but if you have a fast enough machine, it shouldn't be too much of a hit.

 

[brianl703]

Acronis True Image allows you to back up a hard drive to a file on another hard drive (or even another computer thru a network), then restore from that file to a new hard drive later.

 

[Jim 5]

From what I can see, I need to back up all my data, and re-install my operating system on a new partition to do RAID 1.

I'm not that technical, and it seems like it would take too much effort.

As far as true image, would this permit me to back up an exact image of my hard-drive on a rolling/incremental basis to have in reserve should my master drive fail? The idea would be to install the back-up in the place of the failed hard drive, boot as usual and be done.

My apologies for not knowing the language some of you are speaking.

 

[WishIhadatruck]

If you don't have raid now you would most likely need to completely reinstall your operating system once getting the raid drives set up. If you don't want to go through that, if it is even possible with your current hardware, then use software. I've only tried it once and it didn't work using software that came with a new WD hard drive. I use Norton Ghost but I've only used it for retreiving some missing files but it says it has the capability to make a drive image which appears to be seperate from doing back ups in the version I have. When doing back ups you can do it incrementally but the image function is a 1 shot deal I believe.

 

[ConfederateTyrant]

Driveimage XML is a free program for imaging, and I've used it in conjunction with the Bart P.E. boot disc without any issues. It can be found at www.runtime.org and select Driveimage XML.

 

[Touring5]

True Image or Norton Ghost will do just what you want. In addition to making an exact image of your HDD, the image file can be compressed. I do periodic images and save the files to a second, connected drive. I also have a backup drive that is identical to my primary drive and I mirror it so that I can revert back to it with a simple drive swap.

I've created images of drives and then restored them to smaller-capacity drives using Ghost. Of course, this will not always work - particularly if the original drive has little unused space.

 

[Drew99GT]

Although the incremental backup is nice, it is not fail safe and quite a few people report screw-ups in the True Image forum at Wilder's security.

If you haven't purchased the drive yet, I'd recommend an Apricorn external hard drive which comes with imaging software called EZ-Gig II. It's essentially a stripped down version of Acronis True Image - no incremental backup and advanced features. It's super easy to use and I've used it a lot and it's been flawless - I've restored probably 20 images. Plus, you can look back through an image to retrieve individual files, making file backup a cinch.

The most fail safe way to do imaging from my readings with these programs is to boot from the product's CD and make and restore images while the operating system off and that's what I do. That's how many people use Driveimage and True Image, and EZ Gig II comes free with the Apricorn hard drives.

I make a new image about once every couple weeks or when I make an important change to my system. When my hard drive failed, I was back and running in 20 minutes with my system exactly how it was. Greatest thing since sliced bread when it comes to computing.

 

[Lakersguy]

One of the best!

http://www.cmsproducts.com

 

[Volvohead]

You have two independent issues to manage: an equipment strategy that can survive hardware failure; AND a backup strategy that can survive a "systems" failure - a failure in the backup process itself or where one set of data suffers corruption.

In a plain jane local RAID 1, if you corrupt (or erase) the data, it is corrupted (or lost) on both drives. RAID 1 and software mirroring is NOT data redundancy, it is only hardware redundancy.

Probably the most fail-safe tape-less hardware method in a SOHO environment is to run RAID 1 locally at a "server" level for day-to-day access, and to maintain a remote or network accessible RAID 1 or 5 "backup" stack (e.g. a NAS) with restricted access. In this way, you need to lose four disks across two separate arrays to suffer catastrophic data loss - very unlikely. This is not ghosting or mirroring software; this is a hardware solution.

Data that is going to remain static (i.e. large multimedia files) are probably best backed up manually as they created. Smaller dynamic data is better backed up completely (not incrementally) daily, but in multiple sets, similar to a multi-tape arrangement. That way, you can't suffer a nightmare scenario if the source crashed during a single set backup (as the predecessor is erased). The most critical data backup should be either off-site, or extremely portable. Unless you're creating a lot of daily data, you can backup the dynamic data uncompressed, which will reduce problems and speed up backups and recoveries. You would then have to suffer a multiple backup set loss on the backup and corruption of the server copy before catastrophic loss. Multiple timed backups also give a time buffer in the event the server data gets corrupted but is not caught right away.

Expensive? You bet. But some data is so valuable (or priceless) that the price of redundancy is small in comparison. If you've ever worked with a recovery lab, you will learn just how amazingly fragile a HDD is. The newer, bigger drives are much more trouble prone than those of 10 yrs ago and fail with alarming frequency.