Need simple clone solution

[brossyg]

I currently have Acronis True Image Home 2012 running on Win 7 64-bit, and have a simple backup/recovery need for my boot drives.

I have three computers each with the boot drive (C) on an SSD hooked to the mobo and the data drives on a separate RAID card. As a emergency backup for the three C drives, I keep one spare SSD in the closet.

Using Acronis, I keep an incremental back-up of each C drive on my NAS (but have never needed to restore yet).

What I intend to do if any of the C drives fail is to take the spare SSD out of the closet, plug it in to one of the other computers and use Acronis to "restore" the backup image of the drive that failed to the new SSD, then swap that SSD for bad one.

Unfortunately, I asked in the Acronis forum if it as simple as this ...back-up C to an image file on the NAS and then use a working computer to restore the image from the NAS to a fresh SSD ... and got back an answer that involved having to "boot from Acronis recovery CD" and restore from there and several other steps, all of which seems pretty complicated.

I am looking for advice on the simplest solution to back up the three different C drives to separate images and then be able to restore them to a fresh SSD if something bad happens to one of the C drives. I will always have a working computer available to boot to Windows and access the image on the NAS.

Thanks.

 

[Hawkeye22]

I have the same software. You already have what you need. Just go into acronis and tell it to create a rescue disk. Now if one of your SSD's fails, swap out the SSD in the dead computer, boot that computer from the rescue disk, and restore the image to the new SSD. Pop out the rescue disk, reboot, and your done.

UPDATE:
After you create the rescue disk, you may want to test it by booting from it and make sure it can see your NAS properly.

 

[brossyg]

So I understand then ... the Acronis Rescue disk does what? ... has Windows on it plus a macro that loads the backed up image from the NAS onto the fresh SSD?

If this is what a Recue Disk does, but I have a working computer available (Computer B), why can't I go to that computer, stick the fresh SSD into a SATA slot and open Acronis in Windows and have it "restore" the backup image of Computer A's C drive from the NAS, and then put the SSD back in Computer A and be good to go? ... why boot the Acronis Rescue Disk and restore from there if I have several good computers around with Acronis on them and all on the same network as the NAS?

Thanks

 

[popatim]

I imagine what you wish is possible. You already own ATIh and a spare SSD so why not try it?
Truth is if you have not restored your backup then you don't know if you actually backed up to begin with.

Conversely I ask you why do you want to do extra work? Your way has you installing the replacement ssd into your working pc , restoring, then uninstalling and going over to the broken pc to uninstall the broken ssd and install the new one. Is it such a big issue to just install the ssd into the broken pc and running the recovery disk and avoiding your pc altogether?

 

[brossyg]

Hummmm....I guess you are right about the number of steps...your way is shorter. I guess I thought the Acronis recovery disk was necessary because they need to assume the customer has only one computer and therefore needs a way to boot to Windows. I don't have that constraint because I have multiple computers and would ultimately like software that will simply backup the boot partition(s) to an NAS and then restore them to where I specify (an SSD). You are the second person who has said to use the recovery disk.

 

[Hawkeye22]

The rescue disk doesn't boot into windows. It boots int a linux environment that includes Acronis True Image. You use the copy of acronis from the rescue disk to restore your backup.

 

[brossyg]

Got it ... is booting to Linux and running Acronis TI from there fundamentally different than booting to Windows (on a good computer) opening Acronis TI in Windows and restoring the back up from there? (Keep in mind I am restoring a C drive image from an NAS to an SSD that will be used as the C drive in another computer)

Thanks.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Actually, the rescue disc will boot you directly into acronis true image. You don't actually interact with the linux OS - you only see the linux drivers loading on screen just before it launches True Image.

I recommend that you create the rescue disc and boot from it just to make sure it works and can see your NAS properly. In order to check the NAS, you may have to start a restore process, then just cancel out of it when it get to the section to select the image to restore.

 

[brossyg]

Thanks...clearly the best way for me to proceed is to test it. Thanks.