Mirror 2 physical drives to external backup on 1 drive with 2 partitions?

[matthi90]

Hi everyone!

I have a brand new My Passport 2TB laying around and i figured, "Can i possibly split this external drive into 1TB each and then mirror 2 drives to it...1 drive on each external partition?"

Maybe there are some tech-ninja`s around that can answer this for me? I`ve googled around but i mostly find info about mirroring 1 to 1 drive so-to-speak only.

Thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

Mirror? Possibly, but why?

A set of recurring Images, no problem.
Macrium Reflect, Acronis TrueImage, EaseUS Todo...all can create an image of whatever drives you choose, on a much finer grain than a simple "mirror".

I use Macrium Reflect for this.
Read more here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3383768/backup-situation-home.html

 

[matthi90]

I was under the impression that "mirroring" meant that 1 drive continously, or at set times/days was copied to another drive as a backup-solution without having to copy stuff over manually. Oh God.....am i waaaay off? :s

Edit: I am reading your post atm btw.

 

[USAFRet]

I was under the impression that "mirroring" meant that 1 drive continously, or at set times/days was copied to another drive as a backup-solution without having to copy stuff over manually. Oh God.....am i waaaay off? :s

Edit: I am reading your post atm btw.

Well, yes.
You can do a 100% realtime 'mirror'. But that is tough to do if you're considering trying to do two drives into two different partitions on an external.
Even tougher if one of those source drives is the OS drive.

And you'd be giving up a lot of functionality.

 

[matthi90]

My intension is to have 1 copy of the backup and not several if that was how it seemed, I would just like to overwrite and update to latest version of that/those drives. Im not really at a commercial level so id just need the correct software maybe and not a backup station like i read about in your other post?

 

[USAFRet]

My intension is to have 1 copy of the backup and not several if that was how it seemed, I would just like to overwrite and update to latest version of that/those drives. Im not really at a commercial level so id just need the correct software maybe and not a backup station like i read about in your other post?

Sure.
With any of those applications I listed, you can write an Image of whichever drive, to that external, on whatever schedule you choose.
Full Image once a day, once a week, whenever.
2 different drives, 2 different images.

In case of need (dead drive or whatever), slot in a new internal drive, and recover from that daily/weekly/monthly Image.


In my post linked above, that procedure can be as truncated as you like.
2 internal drives, saved off to 2 Images on that external, on whatever schedule you like.

 

[USAFRet]

For instance...

My main PC gets an update of the backup every night. A Full image, and then 14 days of Incrementals. Delete as time goes on.

My HTPC C drive only gets a single Full image once a week, because there's not that much to worry about.

 

[USAFRet]

And in my backup procedure, ignore the fact that it is backing up to a NAS box.
My PC and the Macrium application sees it as just a 12TB external drive with its own drive letter.

That could just as easily be a USB connected drive (your 2TB Passport), or some other internal drive.

 

[matthi90]

Once again you come through! Thanks for the info champ