[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Frank Stearns wrote:
Neil writes:

On 8/27/2016 1:53 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Rick Ruskin wrote:

I have 4 internal drives. 1 for OS & programs, 1 for work, & 2 for
backup.

Disks are so cheap these days there's no reason not to do this. It's a good
idea to make a direct copy of your boot disk and keep it on the shelf so that
if anything happens to the boot drive you can just swap a new one in and go
without losing time in a session. You don't need to update it often like
you need to update your backups of the work disk, and if it's a direct copy
you can just pull the old drive out and drop the new drive in with no added
work.
--scott

If taking this approach, make sure that all of your app's reference
files are kept on one of the backup discs. Normally, some apps will
install their files in a sub-folder on the boot drive, and it could
cause the app to crash if the drive is swapped without a current state
of those files.

Not to mention registry entries and settings.

Just to clarify what I think Scott was getting at by "direct copy", I take that to
mean "bit image". There's a UNIX command that will do this, but I don't think
there's any way on a windows box (and likely a Mac) to do a bit-image copy of a
drive that's currently "live" supporting an OS.


There is a port of "dd" for Windows out there. You can also look up how
to refer to the raw disk image[1] as a file path and just use that ( in
say, a 'C' program or copy utility if not the dd tool. )

[1] The Windows equivalent of say, /dev/sda or /dev/sda1

(And I got so sick of proprietary
file format "backup utilities" that I stopped using them long, long ago).

The most solid way to do this is with a stand-alone disk cloner (which then,
typically, can also be used as a docking station).


So if I needed to do this a lot, I'd put together a Beaglebone with a
USB drive and make some software that copies over the network. 'Course,
Windows' bizarre aversion to continuing to support SMB means you
probably need to do this with a custom transport.

I've got one with two SATA slots (supports both 3.5" or 2.5" drives). Load up a new
drive and the drive you want to clone; press a button and cloning begins -- no need
to have it connected to your computer. A 2 Tbyte drive will take several
hours to clone.

Then, for daily utility, I can change the mode of the thing, plug it in to a USB
port, and have a way to have two additional drives "live" with the system. I use one
made by Orico, there are others. I think it was around US$50.00. Cheap insurance.


At some point, you begin to think about a NAS appliance. I do at least.

Frank
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--
Les Cargill