Help with backing up 2 computers to an external HDD.

[tlcmd]

I would appreciate some advice and sugestions. My wife has a desktop with Win 7 which has a 1TiB HDD and a Laptop running Win 8.1 with a 700 Gig HDD. She has purchased a 2 TiB external hard drive and asked me to back both of her computers up on it.

My gut feeling is to partition the external hard drive and use each computer's back up program to back the computers up to separate  partitions. However, I would like to be able to occasionally bring these backups up to date without having to wipe the HDD and start all over again. So, in order to keep her happy, I'd appreciate some advice.

 

I need to add that she considers her computers to be tools and, like her cars, she wants them to work without necessarily understanding why. 

 

However, I am pretty much a Linux guy, giving up on Windows several years ago, but I've tried to stay as up to date as possible with Windows since my wife is wedded to them. 

 

I would appreciate advice and suggestions, please. I am reposting this on the in 8 forum also.

 

Thanks,

tlcmd

[jaclaz]

Maybe in this case you want to "clone" the partitions of the two hard disks into corresponding volumes on the huge 2 Tb "backup" and then periodically "sync them".

 

You are well within the MBR "style" limits, so there are not any of the (BTW perfectly solvable) possible complications of GPT to be taken into account.

 

Expecially if you (or your wife) are not going to re-partition the devices' hard disks, this would probably be the most simple approach and there are several Windows tools that can be used to perform the periodical "syncing" (since you are a Linux guy, think of rsync), the advantage of this approach is that should the need arise these backups may double as "bare metal restore".

 

How are the current hard disks partitioned?

 

Are you going to create the new disk layout from Windows or from Linux?

 

jaclaz

[tlcmd]

Thank you for the advice. The current hard disks are OEM as I have learned tolet my wife have her own computers and to keep my hands off. Ideally, I would like to sync them via our LAN so they could be automatically backed up on some sort of schedule. Any advice along these lines would also be appreciated.

 

If I may also pick your brain about another topic, I would appreciate some more advice.

I, myself, have a HP Envy which has a quad core Athlon chip, 12 Gigs of RAM, and a 2 tib HDD. I have a seperate  2 TiB external HDD dedicated to it. This computer came with Windows 8.1 which I set up on its own 500 GB partition. I also installed Linux Mint Debian Edition, moving my files to it from an older computer. Just this past week. It is now on its own 800+GB partition.

 

Wihtin the past 10 days, I have also installed on its own 800+ GB partition Linux Mint Debian Edition 2 (Betsy) which is supposed to remain a rolling distro. I elected to do this so I could copy my files to LMDE2 in a well ordered manner. I have to confess that the files on the Windows 8.1 and LMDE wwere not added hodgepodge. 

 

My question: what is the best way to back up this whole 3 partitioned hard drive on the HP computer to the external HDD in order to be certain that I do not accidentally lose everything on all 3 partitions until I get LMDE2 (Betsy) properly and completely set up?

 

You also need to know that I only boot to Windows 8.1 about once a month to keep it updated and let it self maintain. I use LMDE2 well over 99% of the time as I much prefer Linux.

 

Once setting up LMDE2, I will eliminae the LMDE partition and expand the LMDE2 partition. (at the rate I'm going, this might take several months because I have so many interests other than computers which take up a lot of my time. Before I retired, my retired friends told me to get everything done before I retired because after retiring, I would have no free time. They were right!!

 

Thanks,

tlcmd

 

You also need to know that I only boot to Windows 8.1 about once a month to keep it updated and let it self maintain. I use LMDE2 well over 99% of the time as I much prefer Linux.

[Radish]

Sounds like you have complex needs or wants. Why not simplify things for yourself and just do full partition backups on a regular basis. This is how I manage backups for my Windows system. To see some of the issues that you need to take into account for backing up your Windows systems then please read this topic as it has information that is germane to your situation: Win7 Install Partitions and Disk Imaging

 

I can't comment on Linux because I have next to no experience of using it - couple of trial installs with Linux Mint but in the end, though I liked Linux Mint, I just couldn't convince myself it was the way to go because of not having full-featured peripheral drivers available for Linux systems. If the Linux community would only get together and put strong pressure on peripherals manufacturers to create full-featured drivers for Linux systems then I think Linux might become a serious option for a lot of people.

 

However, I have for many years used TeraByte Image for Windows and would strongly recommend it as a way of managing a partition based backup system. If you got TeraByte Image for Windows you would also get thrown in for free Terabyte Image for Linux (which is a boot CD based way of managing partition backups). Even though I have Windows systems I always use Image for Linux (GUI) for managing my backups - works totally fine for Windows systems as well as for Linux systems. ( I would note that there is a full pdf manual that comes with Image for Windows and Image for Linux, it is very good at explaining how to approach backing-up systems using a partition image method of doing so.)

 

I would though, if I were you, give some thought to how your wife manages her data files on the Windows system. For example, does your wife have her 'My Documents' stored on the same partition as the Windows system partition is stored (usually C:). On my systems I always set up 'My Documents' so that it is on a partition all of its own. This is useful for doing backups because I can then backup that partition very easily without having to, at the same time, backup the system partitions. I would say the same for other classes of files that your wife might have on her system. For example, I have a separate partition for portable software that I use - again this makes backing-up that aspect of my system very easy.

 

Hope my suggestions are of help.

[jaclaz]

Well, there is not a "best" way, there are choices to be made.

 

I like "flat", "simple" approaches, but the one suggested by NoelC in your duplicated thread:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/173906-backing-up-2-computers-one-with-win7-one-with-win-81/

is good as well, particularly if you want to deal with it only through Windows 7 or later.

 

I can make no head or tail of these sentences:

 

 

I, myself, have a HP Envy which has a quad core Athlon chip, 12 Gigs of RAM, and a 2 tib HDD. I have a seperate  2 TiB external HDD dedicated to it. This computer came with Windows 8.1 which I set up on its own 500 GB partition. I also installed Linux Mint Debian Edition, moving my files to it from an older computer. Just this past week. It is now on its own 800+GB partition.

 

Wihtin the past 10 days, I have also installed on its own 800+ GB partition Linux Mint Debian Edition 2 (Betsy) which is supposed to remain a rolling distro. I elected to do this so I could copy my files to LMDE2 in a well ordered manner. I have to confess that the files on the Windows 8.1 and LMDE wwere not added hodgepodge. 

 

500+800+800> 2000

 

Just post a copy of the MBR (assuming your disk is MBR and that you made all primary partitions) or run GDISK (or correspondent) and post the result of the p option if it is a GPT:

http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/walkthrough.html

When talking of partitions, you can choose between using sectors or bytes, Tb or Gb, and even Mb, are "vague" you never know if they are metric or binary (i.e. Gb vs. Gib) or how they are rounded (or truincated).

 

jaclaz