length of backup

[thewiz]

I did my first backup to an external drive and it took hours.
My hard drive is 500G.
Will it take less time as it does the next backups?

 

[Smiles]

I did my first backup to an external drive and it took hours.
My hard drive is 500G.
Will it take less time as it does the next backups?

full backup will always take hour

 

[Roy Smith]

I did my first backup to an external drive and it took hours.
My hard drive is 500G.
Will it take less time as it does the next backups?

It all depends on what kind of backup you make. There are 3 different
kinds of backups differential, incremental, and full. A full backup
will always take the longest to perform as it is making a backup copy
of every file on the drive. Differential and Incremental backups both
require that you make a full backup first, then what they backup
differs slightly.

A differential backup will backup any files that have been changed
since the last full backup. This gives you an advantage when
restoring files in that you only need 2 archives, the full backup and
the differential backup. It won't matter if your differential backup
is the first one created, or the 30th one, which ever one you use your
system will be restored to the state the PC was in when that backup
was created.

An incremental backup makes a backup of any files that were changed
since the last full or incremental backup. This has the advantage of
taking less time to create a backup and are smaller in size than a
full backup. The disadvantage is that when restoring your system with
an incremental backup you'll need the full backup and all the
incremental backups in between. So for example let's say you wanted
to restore from your 5th incremental backup, you'd need the full
backup and incremental backups 1, 2, 3 and 4 as well. This brings in
the possibility of having one of your archive files being corrupted
and causing the restoration to fail. So it's a good idea to verify
the integrity of your backups especially when using this method.

 

[southwalker]

It all depends on what kind of backup you make. There are 3 different
kinds of backups differential, incremental, and full. A full backup
will always take the longest to perform as it is making a backup copy
of every file on the drive. Differential and Incremental backups both
require that you make a full backup first, then what they backup
differs slightly.

A differential backup will backup any files that have been changed
since the last full backup. This gives you an advantage when
restoring files in that you only need 2 archives, the full backup and
the differential backup. It won't matter if your differential backup
is the first one created, or the 30th one, which ever one you use your
system will be restored to the state the PC was in when that backup
was created.

An incremental backup makes a backup of any files that were changed
since the last full or incremental backup. This has the advantage of
taking less time to create a backup and are smaller in size than a
full backup. The disadvantage is that when restoring your system with
an incremental backup you'll need the full backup and all the
incremental backups in between. So for example let's say you wanted
to restore from your 5th incremental backup, you'd need the full
backup and incremental backups 1, 2, 3 and 4 as well. This brings in
the possibility of having one of your archive files being corrupted
and causing the restoration to fail. So it's a good idea to verify
the integrity of your backups especially when using this method.

Thanks for the explanation of the different types of backup.

Which would be fastest, a full backup or a clone of the drive.

I was thinking that if the drive isn't full then a clone might be
faster.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Thanks for the explanation of the different types of backup.

Which would be fastest, a full backup or a clone of the drive.

I was thinking that if the drive isn't full then a clone might be
faster.

Or slower.

A full backup only writes the actual files that are on the drive, and
most imaging programs compress the data (Macrium & Acronis do this), so
less data is written.

A clone does not (can not) compress the data, and besides, it might
write every sector of the drive, so it would take longer, even a lot
longer. Some clone programs don't write the unused sectors, but they
still don't compress.

 

[WaIIy]

Or slower.

A full backup only writes the actual files that are on the drive, and
most imaging programs compress the data (Macrium & Acronis do this), so
less data is written.

A clone does not (can not) compress the data, and besides, it might
write every sector of the drive, so it would take longer, even a lot
longer. Some clone programs don't write the unused sectors, but they
still don't compress.

Casper doesn't compress and the initial backup takes 30-60 minutes, give
or take.

Backups after that are very fast and just mirror the changes made to the
primary drive.

 

[Char Jackson]

Casper doesn't compress and the initial backup takes 30-60 minutes, give
or take.

The amount of time it takes is affected by the amount of data (or the
size of the drive) to be backed up, among other things. The fact that
it takes 30-60 minutes on your system doesn't say much about the time
it would take on another system.

Backups after that are very fast and just mirror the changes made to the
primary drive.

What you're describing are either incremental or differential backups.
They were described above.

 

[Paul]

Thanks for the explanation of the different types of backup.

Which would be fastest, a full backup or a clone of the drive.

I was thinking that if the drive isn't full then a clone might be
faster.

Sector by sector backup, transfers 500GB of data in your case.
All the sectors would be copied, even the empty ones, as the
tool doing the sector copy, doesn't care about the contents.

File by file backup (which is what a lot of backup utilities will do),
transfers only as much data as is present in the partition as files.
If you've used 20% of the available space, then 100GB of stuff
would be backed up from your 500GB C: partition. The tool doing the
file by file backup, has to understand the file system, and in Windows
that would be FAT32 or NTFS amongst others. If there is a "foreign
file system" on the hard drive (like UFS), your Windows backup program
may not be able to back it up. But a sector by sector backup, could
capture it, because sector by sector is "blind" to the file systems
used. It doesn't care.

Sector by sector is normally discouraged, due to the time and space
it takes. But if your disk is broken, and you need a "forensic" copy
of the disk (to guarantee nothing gets lost), that's when sector by sector
is the thing to use. For most "normal" "I'm not broken" situations,
file by file is the way to go.

(Example of scavenging a disk, sector by sector... Doing the best
you can, when a disk is physically broken and has bad spots.)

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk

./ddrescue -n /dev/old_disk /dev/new_disk rescued.log
./ddrescue -r 1 /dev/old_disk /dev/new_disk rescued.log

HTH,
Paul

 

[Stan Brown]

I did my first backup to an external drive and it took hours.
My hard drive is 500G.
Will it take less time as it does the next backups?

It would help if you told us which backup software you're using,
and how much of that 500 GB is actually used.

If you have an option to do a differential or incremental backup
next time, that would capture only the new and changed files.
(Different software uses "differential" and "incremental" to mean
slightly different things.) But if what you're doing is a disk
image backup, it's always going to take about the same time.

You might check the backup software and see if it has an option
to adjust priority. You could give it a higher priority, at a
time when you don't want to use your computer for anything else,
and that should make it run faster.

 

[Tony]

Don't backup anything, wait until your first hard drive fails which
could be never so don't backup anything.

I did my first backup to an external drive and it took hours.
My hard drive is 500G.
Will it take less time as it does the next backups?

--
The Grandmaster of the CyberFROG

Come get your ticket to CyberFROG city

Nay, Art thou decideth playeth ye simpleton games. *Some* of us know
proper manners

Very few. I used to take calls from *rank* noobs but got fired the first
day on the job for potty mouth,

Bur-ring, i'll get this one: WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM JERK!!? We're here to
help you dickweed, ok, ok give the power cord the jiggily piggily
wiggily all the while pushing the power button repeatedly now take
everything out of your computer except the power supply and *one* stick
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Deirdre Straughan (Roxio) is a LIAR (Deirdre McFibber)

There's the employer and the employee and the FROGGER and the FROGEE,
which one are you?

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El-Gonzo Jackson FROGS both me and Chuckcar (I just got EL-FROG-OED!!)

I hate them both, With useless bogus bullshit you need at least *three*
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I'm a fulltime text *only* man on usenet now. The rest of the world
downloads the binary files not me i can't afford thousands of dollars a
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UBB = User based bullFROGGING

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Using my technical prowess and computer abilities to answer questions
beyond the realm of understandability

Regards Tony... Making usenet better for everyone everyday

This sig file was compiled via my journeys through usenet

 

[Ken Blake]

I did my first backup to an external drive and it took hours.
My hard drive is 500G.
Will it take less time as it does the next backups?

See Roy Smith's excellent description of Differential and Incremental
backups, and let me add one other disadvantage of them to what he
mentions. If a file is deleted and you later restore from a
differential or incremental backup, you will get that file back.

 

[thewiz]

I did my first backup to an external drive and it took hours.

It would help if you told us which backup software you're using,
and how much of that 500 GB is actually used.

I am using the windows backup program from system and security, backup and
restore.
I am backing up music, documents and photographs.
The program says backup size 129.49GB
From what I have read I am thinking the next backup will be faster as it
will only check and backup what is new or changed?
And, thank you to all that responded and explained how it works.

 

[Ken Blake]

I did my first backup to an external drive and it took hours.
My hard drive is 500G.
Will it take less time as it does the next backups?

Two point (questions):

1. What backup program are you using?

2. The size of your hard drive is normally not an issue at all. What's
the issue is how many GB of the drive are in use, and therefore needs
to be backed up. So please tell us how much of the drive is in use.

 

[Peter Jason]

I did my first backup to an external drive and it took hours.
My hard drive is 500G.
Will it take less time as it does the next backups?

Just the other day I bought a small gizmo for backing up my "library"
1Tb HDD. This HDD has about 700Gb of data, mainly e-books and the
like.

This is a WD "My Passport" portable
P/N WDBACX0010BBK-01
www.westerndigital.com

My Ghost15 recognized it straight away, but it took 9 hours for the
backup. The device is run solely on a USB3 / USB2 connection and this
may account on the long time required.

I's OK for me because I let it backup overnight.

It cost about AUD$130, and I'll buy more later. It's about the size
of a cigarette packet.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Casper doesn't compress and the initial backup takes 30-60 minutes, give
or take.

Casper is a disk cloning program, which is why it acts like that.

As for the time, see what Char Jackson said in his reply.

Backups after that are very fast and just mirror the changes made to the
primary drive.

In other words, Casper does what some clone program makers call smart
backups. Only the sectors that are (1) used, and (2) have been changed,
are written to the clone.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

The amount of time it takes is affected by the amount of data (or the
size of the drive) to be backed up, among other things. The fact that
it takes 30-60 minutes on your system doesn't say much about the time
it would take on another system.


What you're describing are either incremental or differential backups.
They were described above.

In the world of cloning, it's called smart backup or smart cloning. Only
the sectors that were changed since the last clone are written.

Casper is a cloning-only program; it doesn't do images (unless they've
changed it recently).

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Just the other day I bought a small gizmo for backing up my "library"
1Tb HDD. This HDD has about 700Gb of data, mainly e-books and the
like.

This is a WD "My Passport" portable
P/N WDBACX0010BBK-01
www.westerndigital.com

My Ghost15 recognized it straight away, but it took 9 hours for the
backup. The device is run solely on a USB3 / USB2 connection and this
may account on the long time required.

OK, is it USB2 or is it USB3?

USB3 goes a lot faster, but you need a USB3 port to use it, oddly
enough.

 

[Peter Jason]

OK, is it USB2 or is it USB3?

It's USB3 and backwards compatible to USB 2.

I have it plugged into the motherboard USB3 port and it's only
transferring at 66 - 84 Mb/Sec which seems rather low. (Tested with
the Benchmark tab on "HD Tune Pro 4.60".

On the USB2 MB port it transfers at 30 - 35Mb/Sec which is much
lower.

Still, it is only a portable, and the store said they don't come with
the firewire option. It's very portable though and I like to take it
home with me.

 

[Peter Jason]

It's USB3 and backwards compatible to USB 2.

I have it plugged into the motherboard USB3 port and it's only
transferring at 66 - 84 Mb/Sec which seems rather low. (Tested with
the Benchmark tab on "HD Tune Pro 4.60".

On the USB2 MB port it transfers at 30 - 35Mb/Sec which is much
lower.

Still, it is only a portable, and the store said they don't come with
the firewire option. It's very portable though and I like to take it
home with me.

PS: The backup which took 9 hours was done on the USB2 port, so a
USB3 should be about twice as fast. The cable it comes with is very
short.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

It's USB3 and backwards compatible to USB 2.

I have it plugged into the motherboard USB3 port and it's only
transferring at 66 - 84 Mb/Sec which seems rather low. (Tested with
the Benchmark tab on "HD Tune Pro 4.60".

You should have mentioned in your first post that it was indeed plugged
into a USB3 port, instead of requiring me to ask the question...

But your USB3 speed seems very low to me. My backups seem to run at more
like 70 MB/sec, or about 8x yours. The benchmark I use, HD Speed, shows
a read speed of around 640 Mb/sec on the USB3 drive.