Question Reliable Drive Backup/Cloning/Mirroring Method

[dd437]

I'm in search of a method to either backup or clone/mirror my hard drives so that I can recover with minimal downtime in the event of a drive failure. I would really prefer adding additional drives that are mirrored or whatever method is best so that I don't have to spend a day trying to rebuild my system. Like most of us, I use my PC(s) in my business and dealing with a drive crash (and I have) is not good.

I guess I'm looking for suggestions from those who work with servers, etc. on a daily basis who's job it is to make sure that their servers can come back online in a matter of minutes in the event of a drive failure. As we all know, it's not IF, but WHEN a drive will crash.

Thanks!

 

[jsmithepa]

A few of us here use Macrium Reflect. It has a friendly GUI interface. Basically I advise you to keep your OS+Apps on C: only, and the rest of your stuff on another drive. Keep regular Image backup of C:, before a major update etc. using highest compression to save backup drive space. Create a 512 MB+ Recovery Boot Flash, when something happens, even if it doesn't boot, whatever, boot with Flash and restore the entire C: partition, a truly time machine. Back in biz in less than 1/2 hour. Your backup media can be online or a removable USB (even safer). This is your DISASTER RECOVERY.

You should keep another procedure specifically to backup your data, with archiving or not. This is your DATA BACKUP.

 

[USAFRet]

I know this is a few months late, but read the first post here for my solution for this with Macrium Reflect:

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

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