USB Hard Drive

and Image Backups

USB Hard Drive backup using imaging software is my FAVORITE backup method. Now with USB version 2.0, these backups are lightning fast. (2.0 is roughly 40 times faster than 1.1!)

USB hard drives are simple to use. Just plug them in and Windows will assign a drive letter to them. If not, go see USB Drive Letter Missing.

(Do remember to "safely" remove the drive from Windows, or shutdown the computer before unplugging.)

The drive isn't enough, you need software too!

     xcopy C:\*.* E:\Backup /c/e/i/h/r/k/s/y

Introducing the image backup

Backup softwares that makes an entire image of the hard drive have been around for a while, but in the early days I personnally found them to hiccup more often than I was comfortable with.

But now, all that has changed. The latest versions of Acronis True Image backup, my personal choice, are fast and reliable.

The software takes a snapshot of the drives condition, and for the most part, deals with open files and changes that occur during the backup itself.

But that no longer means that you can only restore the entire image! You can take an Acronis drive image and mount it, which assigns it a hard drive letter, and explore it like any other driver. You can copy or view files on it making partial restores a snap.

And like any other backup, I recommend putting a password on the backup and using Password Safe to securely store the password.

Rotating backups

With USB hard drive backups you still need redundancy and rotation. By redundancy, I mean you should own at least two drives and alternate using them.

By rotation, I mean that you should maintain many copies of the data and various time intervals since you sometimes don't know at what point a file became corrupted or was deleted. You can store MANY images on the same USB hard drive, in different directories if you like, and I recommend you do so.

You want to have the option of restoring from a day, week, month, or even a year ago! Rotation allows for that.

USB hard drive backup summary

• Fast
• Becoming less expensive every day
• Easy to backup
• Easy to restore
• Highly reliable
• Very portable
• My Favorite!

Need I say more?

Tip: I typically purchase the hard drive of my choice and install it in an enclosure of my choice. For a while now, that choice has been the Vantec NexStar 3. It supports a SATA 3Gbps hard drive and eSATA connection in addition to being a USB hard drive. If you don't have an external SATA port on your PC but you do have a connector inside on the motherboard, a SATA to eSATA bracket is included.

Another benefit of doing this is the ability to buy a less expensive, smaller hard drive now and swap out later with a larger drive when your backup needs have increased and the cost of the larger drive has come down!