TeraByte Unlimited

I am looking to setup the following backup strategy with Image for Windows (latest ver) under Windows 2003:

- 1st of month, full backup to external USB hard disk
- every day diff backup, using the 1st of month as the full backup of course

Then, when the 1st of the month comes along again, do a full backup again, and repeat process.. The trick is, i don't want to end up with an entirely separate full backup again and would like to overwrite the previous one. I thought I could just give the file the same name. But how about the differential backups? Is there some facility inside image for windows to handle this or do i just need to erase the backup every time at the beginning of the month with some script..?

On Sun, 21 Oct 2012 22:27:15 PDT, jarany wrote:

>I am looking to setup the following backup strategy with Image for Windows (latest ver) under Windows 2003:
>
>- 1st of month, full backup to external USB hard disk
>- every day diff backup, using the 1st of month as the full backup of course
>
>Then, when the 1st of the month comes along again, do a full backup again, and repeat process.. The trick is, i don't want to end up with an entirely separate full backup again and would like to overwrite the previous one. I thought I could just give the file the same name. But how about the differential backups? Is there some facility inside image for windows to handle this or do i just need to erase the backup every time at the beginning of the month with some script..?
>
It is *not* a good strategy to overwrite your only full backup when
taking a new full backup.

Consider the scenario where, while taking the full backup, you
encounter read errors on the disk being backed up. You will have
overwritten your only good backup, and not be in a position to recover
the corrupt information.

You should also consider how to recover from the case where your full
backup could become unreadable when trying to restore a partition for
some reason. If there is only one full backup which becomes
unreadable, you have lost the ability to restore anything.

Ok, I agree.. However I will be mirroring the backup to two external drives which will be kept offsite..

My problem now is the purge command doesn't work as intended.. I wants to purge my full backup, even when i'm trying to do a incremental/changes backup...


TAC109 wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Oct 2012 22:27:15 PDT, jarany wrote:
>
>
>
> >I am looking to setup the following backup strategy with Image for Windows (latest
> ver) under Windows 2003:
>
> >
>
> >- 1st of month, full backup to external USB hard disk
>
> >- every day diff backup, using the 1st of month as the full backup of course
>
> >
>
> >Then, when the 1st of the month comes along again, do a full backup again, and repeat
> process.. The trick is, i don't want to end up with an entirely separate full backup
> again and would like to overwrite the previous one. I thought I could just give
> the file the same name. But how about the differential backups? Is there some facility
> inside image for windows to handle this or do i just need to erase the backup every
> time at the beginning of the month with some script..?
>
> >
>
> It is *not* a good strategy to overwrite your only full backup when
>
> taking a new full backup.
>
>
>
> Consider the scenario where, while taking the full backup, you
>
> encounter read errors on the disk being backed up. You will have
>
> overwritten your only good backup, and not be in a position to recover
>
> the corrupt information.
>
>
>
> You should also consider how to recover from the case where your full
>
> backup could become unreadable when trying to restore a partition for
>
> some reason. If there is only one full backup which becomes
>
> unreadable, you have lost the ability to restore anything.
>
>

You could use Task Scheduler (Should be under Programs > Accessories > System Tools). From there, you could set up a schedule to run on the second of each month (that would give you an extra day of both backups, in case of an issue) for every month of the year. From there, you launch a script file (VBS or batch file should work) that then erases the previous backup.