Welcome guest. Before posting on our computer help forum, you must register. Click here it's easy and free.

Author Topic: Best routine for backing up multiple machines?  (Read 2697 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

MikeW84

    Topic Starter


    Rookie

    • Experience: Beginner
    • OS: Windows 98/ME
    Best routine for backing up multiple machines?
    « on: May 25, 2017, 08:37:09 AM »
    Right now I'm manually removing the hard drives and copying the files for backups. This seems like maybe it's not the best solution. We have several licenses for Acronis , but I don't think we want to buy the license for every PC we have here. So I'm looking for opinions on a better way to backup multiple machines.
       Best regards,
          Mike Wilson

    patio

    • Moderator


    • Genius
    • Maud' Dib
    • Thanked: 1769
      • Yes
    • Experience: Beginner
    • OS: Windows 7
    Re: Best routine for backing up multiple machines?
    « Reply #1 on: May 25, 2017, 08:49:29 AM »
    Macrium Reflect...and Easus to Do both have Free versions...

    I've used both and they work well.
    " Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

    DaveLembke



      Sage
    • Thanked: 662
    • Certifications: List
    • Computer: Specs
    • Experience: Expert
    • OS: Windows 10
    Re: Best routine for backing up multiple machines?
    « Reply #2 on: May 25, 2017, 11:21:12 AM »
    I second Macrium Reflect. The free edition works awesome with my Windows 7 systems for saving images and cloning drives.  :)

    Not sure if the free editions are not suppose to be used for commercial use though. From what you shared it sounds like it might be commercial use vs home use. So to be legal you might have to buy licenses.  :-\

    In my builds at home I have 2 hard drives in each desktop system, and Macrium Reflect on them. After the build is done, I clone the drives and then disconnect the master drive of power. Then later when I need to make the system like new again i will connect the master drive and copy that image to the non-master working drive. With SATA 2 and SATA 3 drives and controllers in my systems its fast for drives that only have about 100GB to clone on a pair of 500GB HDDs etc. Less than 45 minutes, but a manual process.

    Years ago I use to have Enterprise Norton Ghost which allowed you to tell an image to go to multiple systems at the same time over a network and that worked great, but slammed the network with image data transfer for a few hours back when I maintained a computer lab for a company that did internal training and wanted the systems wiped clean to clean build after each group of students passed through the training. Here is more info on the Ghost Option I used that my employer purchased that allowed you to image multiple systems at the same time. They have newer software these days that does this from Symantec. This article is 17 years old, but this is what I used. http://windowsitpro.com/systems-management/norton-ghost-60-enterprise-edition

    More info here on Norton Ghost Multicasting Image Server: https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH106806.html

    Clonezilla is a free method of cloning, where you dont have to worry about licensing, BUT.... I havent had the best of luck with it. I have run into problems with its use to where images created are junk. Yet others have had success with it. Its been a few years since I messed with Clonezilla and maybe its gotten better. But its a free alternative if you want to clone drive to drive, but its a manual process and not as easy as Macrium Reflect etc. As well as when using it, verify that the image clone is a success and not a partial clone etc. Set the freshly imaged to drive as the active drive and see if it will run properly the same as the master drive that it was imaged from vs assuming that the process was a success. I ran into drives that after clonezilla either didnt boot or if they did boot it was as if there was corruption or data missing required by Windows to operate. Clonezilla should really be reworked it it hasnt already been to make it more user friendly and less prone to failure in the cloning process.  :-\

    Lastly to mention is use of a physical stand alone hard drive duplicator. I picked one up for $40 that you can place master drive with data on it into slot A and another drive into slot B. You press and hold a button and then it starts the process of copying all of A to B. When done it shows a LED complete light. Simply power it off take the drive and install it into laptop or desktop PC and boot and run off that drive without any problems. However if hardware cloning mismatches capacity drives you might want to go in and expand the partition for C: etc to use all available space if say the master drive is 500GB and the drive taking the image is 1TB, otherwise 500GB of the drive will be unpartitioned unused space. I use this device mainly for cloning SATA Laptop 2.5" drives as for laptops I have dont support 2 hard drives installed at the same time to clone direct drive to drive, and over USB I had troubles cloning drive to drive, yet over USB I can restore a system from image file.

    This Hard Drive Duplicator doesnt require software licensing, however you do have to worry about Windows Keys as for you dont want 10 of the same make/model computer running from same clone process all on the same Windows Key.  ::) Seen it done and while each system does have its unique key for same version of Windows as running from clone with same key. Its kind of a grey area with licensing and systems can get flagged as having a pirated key etc if microsoft detects multiples of same key in use.  :-\

    patio

    • Moderator


    • Genius
    • Maud' Dib
    • Thanked: 1769
      • Yes
    • Experience: Beginner
    • OS: Windows 7
    Re: Best routine for backing up multiple machines?
    « Reply #3 on: May 25, 2017, 03:17:52 PM »
    Clonezilla gave me nightmares...but that's just my personal experience...

    Also to your point...no matter which app is used if you get impatient and don't wanna waste time verifying images created yer in for a nightmare...just sayin.
    " Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

    MikeW84

      Topic Starter


      Rookie

      • Experience: Beginner
      • OS: Windows 98/ME
      Re: Best routine for backing up multiple machines?
      « Reply #4 on: May 25, 2017, 06:33:59 PM »
        We have Clonezilla ans Easus at work on an old laptop the engineer left. I will get them and start messing around with them. I think I need to mess around with Norton Ghost too because we have tons of machines that are on MSDOS. I'm gonna get Macrium Reflect as well. Thanks for the replies. I haven't really messed around with backups much especially on a large scale for a manufacturing plant. I'm learning as I go , and I appreciate you guys taking the time to lend advice! ;D ;D

      Patio - I can't be impatient and make mistakes with this stuff. If I screw one of these up and a machine goes down and I don't have a valid backup I'm in deep *&^(. Haha...

      Speaking of which... I have two old pcs set up to run these hard drives once backed up. I have one for a IDE and one for a SATA setup. I'm also trying to figure out how to setup dosbox to run dos programs and setting up virtual machines to test. Anyone think having two different computers setup is wasting time?


      Geek-9pm


        Mastermind
      • Geek After Dark
      • Thanked: 1026
        • Gekk9pm bnlog
      • Certifications: List
      • Computer: Specs
      • Experience: Expert
      • OS: Windows 10
      Re: Best routine for backing up multiple machines?
      « Reply #5 on: May 25, 2017, 07:13:30 PM »
      ....
      Speaking of which... I have two old pcs set up to run these hard drives once backed up. I have one for a IDE and one for a SATA setup. I'm also trying to figure out how to setup dosbox to run dos programs and setting up virtual machines to test. Anyone think having two different computers setup is wasting time?
      Sounds good to me.
      Old PCs make good file servers, print servers, an network attached  storage bxs.