computer backup programs

**JDonner** · 12 January 2009, 02:06 AM

Originally Posted by Soquili

I like to use a 40GB to 80GB drive for the boot/OS drive (although they are getting diffcult to find

I would like to advice against that, since these small drives are much slower than modern drives, even if they both run at 7200rpm and you don't have to do it for the price either, 40gb/80GB drives are not all that much cheaper than their larger cousins. Of course... if you don't care about performance... then just ignore what I said.

**Soquili** · 12 January 2009, 02:09 AM

It is not a matter of being cheaper. It is about not requiring a larger drive simply for the OS/Boot disk.

I do not like partitioning drives. And using a 500GB drive for the OS is a waste of space.

Programs and data can be put on the none OS/boot disk(s).

**JDonner** · 12 January 2009, 02:15 AM

Originally Posted by Soquili

It is not a matter of being cheaper. It is about not requiring a larger drive simply for the OS/Boot disk.

If it's not about cheaper, then what is the reason? Why sacrafice on performance for 30-40$? I don't get that. Don't underestimate it, transfer speed of my 640GB 2 platter is already about 25-30% faster than my previous 320 and 500GB drive. I have also run tests by copying large directories with multiple files of different sizes and I also see that same gain.

**JDonner** · 12 January 2009, 02:17 AM

Originally Posted by Soquili

And using a 500GB drive for the OS is a waste of space.

But that is what we have partioning for... and even if you do not want to partition is.... so what if you don't use the 500GB, I think it's just odd if people would buy a $300 quad core and then start saving on their hard drive for $30-50 and as a result lose 20-30% on hard drive performance, hard drives that are often still the bottle neck in the system.

**Soquili** · 12 January 2009, 02:21 AM

It is about isolating the OS to one drive.

Programs and data to a drive of their own.

It is a personal preference that has been beneficial for system recovery for more than 28 years.

By not using Partitions there is less work to be done by each drive and each drive can receive and send data to the system more efficiently. The data bus can move data faster than the drives can accept and submit.

**JDonner** · 12 January 2009, 02:26 AM

Originally Posted by Soquili

It is a personal preference that has been beneficial for system recovery for more than 28 years.

And I can tell you as someone who is a systemadmin. for over 22 years (you brought up your experience first) that it's rather foolish to put the OS on a slow old 40/80GB hard drive when you could use a 20-30% faster driver that only costs a little less, especially in comparison to what professional desktops and servers costs basically nothing but peanuts.

Who cares if you would only use 80GB of that 500GB?

You don't go buying a modern Core2Duo or Quad that costs a few hundred bucks and then use a 7 year old drive (for the OS that is)...that doesn't make any sense at all...sigh

**Soquili** · 12 January 2009, 02:32 AM

Old habits and personal preferences are very hard to break.

**Millertime** · 12 January 2009, 11:45 PM

Originally Posted by gnurf

Anyway, a nifty tool I use is SyncToy to backup files (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en yes, it's actually a Microsoft tool made by Microsoft

, IMO it should be included in Windows)

All important files like installation files and data files I backup to an external drive with SyncToy

Thanks Gnurf, for posting that. Thats just the kind of utlility I was looking For!

Downloaded and installed (also downloaded net framework 2.0 needed to run it) So far I like it simple and easy to use with my external drive.