External Hard Drive Size for Backing Up Four Internal Drives

ZippyPeanut · May 16, 2016

I'm getting ready to back up everything: all files and applications. Two Questions:

1. I have three internal drives: 2TB WD Black, 2TB Seagate Barracuda, and a 500GB Samsung EVO SSD. None of the drives are even half full (but the Seagate and EVO are just a little less than half full.) If I use Acronis or Macrium to image all my drives, can I use a single 4TB external hard drive to image all three internal drives?

2. Acronis True Image 2016 is getting some bad reviews; so I'm considering Macrium. Any opinions on simple and reliable cloning and back-up software are welcome.

Thanks.

Paperdoc · May 16, 2016

I have not used exactly those software packages. My previous experience with software derived from Acronis is this: When you use it to clone ONE HDD unit to the external, it presents you with a set of parameters it proposes to use to make that clone copy. USUALLY it will plan to make the copy the SAME size as the entire original drive unit, and it asks if you approve and let it proceed. This is where you DO NOT hit "Enter" blindly. For starters, READ the instruction manual document for the cloning utility you are using. The ones I have used have menus you can use to change the proposed cloning settings. Use those menus to set two important options EACH time you make a clone copy of a different drive unit. You should be setting the actual size of the clone copy (sufficient to hold all the DATA from the original, not all of its total size), and whether or not is needs to be a BOOTABLE drive. For example, if your machine boots only from the SSD, then only that clone copy needs to be bootable. That way, if you ever need to RESTORE from the clone back to the original, it will work to boot from.

Once you have re-specified the cloning parameters as you need them, THEN let it do the job. When you go to clone the next drive unit, your external HDD will have lots of space to accept the new clone, and you can do the sme prove4ss to use up only the space you NEED to use.

NOTE that many drive units actually have more than one Partition or "drive" on them these days. To clone the entire unit you need to clone all those "drives", each to its own Partition on the external unit. The default proposal will use "Proportional Sizing" to suggest the sizes of the DESTINATION (clone) copies of all the Partitions on the one HDD unit you are cloning. You need to set your own size specs, etc. for EACH of the Partitions being made.

ZippyPeanut · May 17, 2016

Paperdoc :

I have not used exactly those software packages. My previous experience with software derived from Acronis is this: When you use it to clone ONE HDD unit to the external, it presents you with a set of parameters it proposes to use to make that clone copy. USUALLY it will plan to make the copy the SAME size as the entire original drive unit, and it asks if you approve and let it proceed. This is where you DO NOT hit "Enter" blindly. For starters, READ the instruction manual document for the cloning utility you are using. The ones I have used have menus you can use to change the proposed cloning settings. Use those menus to set two important options EACH time you make a clone copy of a different drive unit. You should be setting the actual size of the clone copy (sufficient to hold all the DATA from the original, not all of its total size), and whether or not is needs to be a BOOTABLE drive. For example, if your machine boots only from the SSD, then only that clone copy needs to be bootable. That way, if you ever need to RESTORE from the clone back to the original, it will work to boot from.

Once you have re-specified the cloning parameters as you need them, THEN let it do the job. When you go to clone the next drive unit, your external HDD will have lots of space to accept the new clone, and you can do the sme prove4ss to use up only the space you NEED to use.

NOTE that many drive units actually have more than one Partition or "drive" on them these days. To clone the entire unit you need to clone all those "drives", each to its own Partition on the external unit. The default proposal will use "Proportional Sizing" to suggest the sizes of the DESTINATION (clone) copies of all the Partitions on the one HDD unit you are cloning. You need to set your own size specs, etc. for EACH of the Partitions being made.

Thanks for this careful and informative response. This is very helpful. I'm probably going to increase the destination drive to 5TB. I look forward to learning the parameters and options of Macrium and applying the wise advice you give. I'm going to CLONE the C-drive (SSD with OS), and I'm considering IMAGING the hard drives.

Search

External Hard Drive Size for Backing Up Four Internal Drives

ZippyPeanut

Honorable

Paperdoc

Paperdoc

Polypheme

ZippyPeanut

Honorable

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page