External Hard Drive question

[brkkab123]

I'm planning on purchasing a Iomega 34527 Professional Hard Drive next week. I'm going to be using this drive to backup my Windows 7 Professional x64 computer. I've never seen any information on this question I have anywhere before. This drive is 2 terabytes. I'd like tp use Disk Management to partition this drive into 2 partitions. One partition will be for a full syem image of my 2 internal hard drives and the second I want to use for weekly backups. Can this be done ? If so, I'd like the partion for system images to be 500 gigabytes, as I currently have 76 gigabytes used on drive C; (Windows, Programs & Recorded TV) and 208 gigabytes used on drive D: ( Contacts, Documents, Downloads, Movies, Music, Saved Games, Searches and Videos). I'm planning on using Windows Backup for all this.

 

[TrainableMan]

As soon as you attach the drive to your computer you can use Disk Management to partition it any way you like.

If your C: drive is larger than 500GB then you may have trouble cloning your drive to it, as most software wants it to be the same size or larger. Also you mention images of 2 HDs plus a partition for backups. That is a total of 3 partitions needed. Perhaps you are talking something different then cloning the drive when you take an image? What imaging software will you be using?

I am getting a bit frustrated with W7 back-up and may look at some others suggested in these forums. My last back-up ran 10hours and 52mins and my C: drive is only 400GB !

 

[brkkab123]

Both my internal hard drives are 1.0 tb. I want to make 1 image of them as 1 single image, plus use a 2nd partiton on external hard drive for weekly backups. I may get Acronis True Image Home 2011. I'm going to try the trial of it first before I decide. Be glad you only have a 400 gb. drive. It takes 3+ hours to run Check Disk on each drive and I found in Windows 7 that if you schedule it to run both drives back to back the second C: drive counts down to 1 and freezes up. That's with all drivers updated and no malware on pc.They work fine singularly running Check Disk. Sounds like a bug Microsoft needs to fix in Service Pack 1.

 

[TrainableMan]

I have 1TB internal + esata external 1TB + esata external 500GB + USB external 500GB but I'm only running backup on the 400GB partition of my internal.

I'm not sure if you can create images of 2x1TB and put them on a single 500GB partition. It won't know if it can fit or not so I doubt it will let you.

 

[Nibiru2012]

I'm planning on using Windows Backup for all this.

I hope it works for you, many users have been having issues with Windows 7 Backup.

It's slow, clunky and many times will hiccup and not finish the task.

It's HIGHLY recommended that you use either Acronis True Image Home or Macrium Reflect Free. Both are very fast, accurate and work well.

 

[brkkab123]

I'm gonna give it a try when the drive arrives. I'm ordering it next Monday.

 

[Super Sarge]

I use W7 for daily Full backups, I have never experienced a Hiccup nor has it ever failed to backup. I backup to one of my 4 internal Hard drives. I also do a full manual full backup using Macrium Reflect to another internal HD on a weekly basis keeping 3 weeks of Full Macrium Backups on hand at all times.

 

[brkkab123]

Super Sarge did you do both on the same external h.d.

 

[Super Sarge]

No my backups are done to different internal Hard drives, I have 4 internal Hard Drives and more than 3 external Hard Drives

 

[brkkab123]

I'm only spending money on one drive for backups. I'm don't have money to blow on more than one external hard drive.