Re: Query on mirroring for Paul Breeze et al.

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Harry Binswanger wrote:

> I'm looking for the best way to have a backup drive that can be immediately
> substituted for the C: drive should that fail. But I want to make sure that
> a virus that attacks all the drives that it can find on my computer will
> not see the one I'm using for backup. I was thinking the easiest way is to
> "remove" (turn the power off of) the backup drive. I guess that means doing
> disk-imaging not mirroring.

If you have a definitely good, *restorable*, pre-Virus partition image (made
with GHOST, Drive Image, or various other backup / restore imaging programs),
you should (in theory) be able to get back to what you had at the time that
"snapshot" was taken. As such, you would lose only whatever happened to / on
that partition since the time the image was made. The details of this can get
a bit messier, as I found out when attempting to restore images made with a
too-old version of DI. It is likely because MS changed the specs for NTFS
partitions at least once since the last image was made, and DI could not cope
with this, that the image I had made earlier would not restore in a way that
rendered the Win partition bootable. If doing this today, I would use a
different tool.

I happen to believe in off-site backup. If your backup happens to exist (only)
in the same box, there are various ways it can perish also. Your images could
be onto removeable storage, such as a DVD or a pull-out hard drive. But if you
have another hard drive of the same type & size, you might just as well clone
the drive, rather than bother with making compressed images. Then, keep the
clone drive as an emergency spare. You could still make periodic backup images
onto something like an external USB hard drive. This stuff has all become a
lot more affordable. A good thing, because -- viruses & other beasties aside
-- the reliablity and longevity of most hard drives these days is not something
I would care to wager on heavily. Q.C. has gone down with the prices, along
with the warranty durations.


Jordan