Backup hard drive

[Ext User(Antares 531)]

I'm having another Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 problem. My desktop
computer has three Western Digital SCSI hard drives. Drive C: is used
for my programs. Drive D: is used for my client software working
files. Drive F: is used for a back-up.

Each of these hard drives is 465 GB and, except for the back-up drive,
have a lot of free space. The back-up drive shows 465 GB used with
33.1 MB free. This is the problem. There isn't enough room for the
automatic back-up process to do its job and this causes my computer to
stall out while the drive light indicates a continual activity.

I looked at the contents of the back-up drive in Windows Explorer and
the total of all the files/folders doesn't come anywhere near the 465
GB shown as used space. I'm thinking this drive has multiple copies of
some of these backed-up files. If this is right, I would like to
delete those older copies then do a disc clean-up and see if this
would resolve the problem. How do I find and delete those older
copies, if they do exist?

Thanks, Gordon

[Ext User(Gene E. Bloch)]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:26:20 -0500, Antares 531 wrote:

> I'm having another Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 problem. My desktop
> computer has three Western Digital SCSI hard drives. Drive C: is used
> for my programs. Drive D: is used for my client software working
> files. Drive F: is used for a back-up.
>
> Each of these hard drives is 465 GB and, except for the back-up drive,
> have a lot of free space. The back-up drive shows 465 GB used with
> 33.1 MB free. This is the problem. There isn't enough room for the
> automatic back-up process to do its job and this causes my computer to
> stall out while the drive light indicates a continual activity.
>
> I looked at the contents of the back-up drive in Windows Explorer and
> the total of all the files/folders doesn't come anywhere near the 465
> GB shown as used space. I'm thinking this drive has multiple copies of
> some of these backed-up files. If this is right, I would like to
> delete those older copies then do a disc clean-up and see if this
> would resolve the problem. How do I find and delete those older
> copies, if they do exist?
>
> Thanks, Gordon

1. Back up to an external drive.

2. Clear the internal BU drive.

3. Now you have an external backup - for safety - *and* you can backup
to the internal drive again.

I back up alternately to two external drives. Ideally, drive 1 this week
and drive 2 next week, and so on. I should backing up in that manner at
least weekly, but I am not very disciplined.

BTW, backing up to an internal drive is not as safe as backing up to an
external drive, especially if it is connected only while backing up (or
restoring).

External backups are not fast on USB2, but if you back up overnight, or
your backups are small, or your program backs up incrementally, it's not
so bad.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

[Ext User(TheGunslinger)]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:26:20 -0500, Antares 531
<gordonlrDELETE@swbell.net> wrote:

>I'm having another Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 problem. My desktop
>computer has three Western Digital SCSI hard drives. Drive C: is used
>for my programs. Drive D: is used for my client software working
>files. Drive F: is used for a back-up.
>
>Each of these hard drives is 465 GB and, except for the back-up drive,
>have a lot of free space. The back-up drive shows 465 GB used with
>33.1 MB free. This is the problem. There isn't enough room for the
>automatic back-up process to do its job and this causes my computer to
>stall out while the drive light indicates a continual activity.
>
>I looked at the contents of the back-up drive in Windows Explorer and
>the total of all the files/folders doesn't come anywhere near the 465
>GB shown as used space. I'm thinking this drive has multiple copies of
>some of these backed-up files. If this is right, I would like to
>delete those older copies then do a disc clean-up and see if this
>would resolve the problem. How do I find and delete those older
>copies, if they do exist?
>
>Thanks, Gordon


Howdy,

Several options:

1) Invest in a 1-TB or larger external drive and partition into at
least 2-partitions, and alternate drives for scheduled backups.

2) As you surmise, the program does create multiple back-ups and saves
them so you can return to an earlier version if needed.

There is a setting for how many back-ups to keep and how long to keep
a back-up.

There is, also, another setting for performing FULL or INCREMENTAL
back-ups.

Incremental back-ups only new or changed files.

3) I personally recommend a combo back-up system:

Invest in an external hdd, and divide into 2 or more partitions that
will allow you to perform periodic FULL back-ups. I prefer doing a
FULL IMAGE FILE back-up.

The advantages are that if you should suffer a major hdd crash and
have to replace the drive, you can restore the new drive to the old
drive status, and if the new drive is larger, you can extend the drive
to use the entire disk or create a second partition. W/e works best.

Lastly, by using an external hdd drive with 2 or more partitions, you
can use one partition to perform back-ups with the incremental
setting, and the other partition to perform a monthly or weekly full
image back-up.

Hope this helps you determine your needs and options.

Respectfully,

MJR