>A client has a Toshiba laptop with a 40GB hard drive (~9GB used) and a DVD burner.
>
>One option would be to use a program like Norton Ghost 10 or Acronis TrueImage 9. The Acronis product seems to have the advantage in being able to back up individual folders or files rather than just complete disk partitions. Can anyone comment on one or the other?
>
>I'm also interested in any experiences people may have with:
>
>- On-line backup
>
>- Backup to external hard drives (USB 2.0) - either a plain drive or one of the so-called "one-button" backup solutions
>
>- Other methods?
>
>TIA.

Hi Al.

I see many recommendations for external USB drive. My problem with that is if the USB drive fails then what? Backup gone. I prefer to do backups to CD for all frequently changing files eg documents, excel files, outlook files, source code, etc. Then more or less full backup weekly to DVD. I dont bother with backing up Windows and stuff that can be completely re-created from original media. I can then archive both the CD and DVD in an offsite/onsite arrangement.

External USB drives can be used as a supplement to the above for fast local backup storage but keeping in mind the dangers including, btw, the fact the USB drives are still drives which can fail. I have found some USB drives can lose their file allocation tables when the host PC does not power down properly or disconnect the external drive properly.

Also, by not employing a series of backups going back in time any corruption on the source will be transferred to the backup and destroy the integrity of the possibly only backup as well.

Other considerations include the sensitivity of the data and the use of encryption on the backups (which may be in transit).

hth