Straw poll

[Bob Coleman]

a1pcfixer wrote:
> Bob Coleman wrote:
> >
> > Agreed on imaging the partitions together, basically treating them as a single
> unit,
> > but then why bother splitting them apart in the first place?
>
> Because you can't image separate drives at one time is one reason. I elaborated on
> this back a few posts.

Oh, so is your point wanting programs on a different physical disk than the OS (maybe due to physical disk space constraints)?

I'm not arguing with Brian's special case which he seems to be able to manage, but since you I seem to agree that, in general, an OS partition and program partition need to be kept in synch, I'd argue why have both if on the same hard disk, but if on different disks, yes, I can see that could be reasonable.

In that case, I can see the rationale for having two partitions, but backing them up at (nearly) the same time.

[Brian K]

Bob Coleman wrote:
> an OS partition and program partition
> need to be kept in synch,

Bob,

I feel they are in synch. Let's say both partitions are imaged "together", one after another, and then the OS is imaged daily for a month and the Games partition isn't. If no changes happen to the Games partition in that month then both partitions are still in synch as far as the backup images are concerned. If the HD failed I'd restore yesterday's OS image and last month's Games image and all would be good. There is no advantage in repeatedly imaging a partition that doesn't change.

[a1pcfixer]

For your very unique situation, *IF* you never screw-up and follow your procedure precisely each and every day forever, you should be good.
However, such a procedure is narrow in scope, and doesn't apply to the broader range of users.

I used to have your exact same approach, until I got bit in the arse by my own high thinking on this.
With age & experience comes wisdom and knowledge.<g>

*IF* your approach works for you, congratulations.....seriously!


Brian K wrote:
> Bob Coleman wrote:
> > an OS partition and program partition
> > need to be kept in synch,
>
> Bob,
>
> I feel they are in synch. Let's say both partitions are imaged "together",
> one after another, and then the OS is imaged daily for a month and the Games
> partition isn't. If no changes happen to the Games partition in that month then both
> partitions are still in synch as far as the backup images are concerned. If the HD
> failed I'd restore yesterday's OS image and last month's Games image and all would be
> good. There is no advantage in repeatedly imaging a partition that doesn't change.

[Brian K]

Guys,

Thanks for the input. I'm not silly enough to think I'm correct too often and I might not be correct in this situation but it hasn't failed me so far. So if anyone wants to point out the error of my ways, please do.

[TAC109]

On Fri, 19 Oct 2012 12:51:23 PDT, Brian K wrote:

>I feel they are in synch. Let's say both partitions are imaged "together", one after another, and then the OS is imaged daily for a month and the Games partition isn't. If no changes happen to the Games partition in that month then both partitions are still in synch as far as the backup images are concerned. If the HD failed I'd restore yesterday's OS image and last month's Games image and all would be good. There is no advantage in repeatedly imaging a partition that doesn't change.
>
I'm surprised that you need to image the Windows partition daily. Do
you install programs very frequently?

An advantage of imaging a partition that doesn't change much is that
you get advance warning if it contains blocks that are going bad but
which don't get read in normal use. For differential imaging there
will be little space taken up in the image.

[Brian K]

TAC109 wrote:
> Do
> you install programs very frequently?
>

Tom, not so often these days but I update apps (the ones installed in the C: drive) and tweak things frequently so I don't want to lose a bright idea I had a few days ago. A differential image of my OS only takes 90 seconds and it's scheduled so I'd rather image too frequently than the reverse.

[Bob Coleman]

I also image the OS partition (and some others) daily (unless I'm not using the PC for some number of days). I somewhat arbitrarily keep the images for a month. Do I make changes daily? No, but I make them more or less as I please without too much worry or thought. I always have a (more than?) reasonable number of choices to revert to if something goes wrong. I just find it easier than spending any effort deciding when I should image the OS.

[Brian K]

Bob, that sums up my thinking about OS images too.