I have always stored my data on my C: drive, along with the OS and my programs/utilities. Then I would use my 2nd HDD to do internal backups and to install specialty programs like Virtual PC. Then when I created a system image of my C: drive, the image contained all my data and programs. So if I did a restore from my system image, everything was restored. This probably meant it took longer to create a system image, but I typically did that at night so time was not an issue.

But now I read where some users keep their data on a separate drive, and I'm wondering what the advantages are to doing that? Shorter backup times for your C: drive? Then would you regularly back up your data drive separately; if, so what program would you use to do just a data file backup (Windows Backup?)?

I'm probably missing something, but if your C: drive is large enough to hold OS, programs and data, why not keep it all together and simplify the backup/restore process. And, of course, back up to more than one place (I currently create a system image on the 2nd internal drive, as well as two external drives).

Comments, advice and education would be appreciated. Thanks...

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BB
http://barrypatch.net

Hi bbarry

I keep all programs and business data on c: videos' vm machines, backups, images, etc go on other drives. Also I don't partition, don't see any reason.

On my c: drive I use 150gb out of the 1tb. This way all the files are at the fastest part of the drive. Normally that might not matter, but I can see the difference with Train Simulator.

Pete

You take a risk of data loss by keeping it on the same partition as your system. In a system image, if you have to restore, you lose any data you created since that image was taken. You would absolutely have to have a second data backup in this scenario.

Same if you had to restore an image and it failed. You've lost all your data, unless you have a separate data backup on a different drive.

I do system and programs on C, Data on a separate partition. My external backup drive has my images and separate data backups. Cloud has a small amount of non-sensitive data, some pictures and all my music.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

Thanks for the response, Pete. That's what I was wanting to continue to do on my new computer that will have three drives. I'm biting the bullet and getting a 500GB SSD for my C: drive......I figure I will only fill it 50%, so that should make it fast (or maybe that doesn't matter with an SSD). The other two 2TB HDD's will then be used for images, all my critter videos/photos, and if I decide to go with Win 7, hopefully my existing VPC. With HDD's so cheap these days, I don't plan on partitioning either.

I also plan on imaging C: drive to a couple of external drives, one of which I will always leave at a buddy's house (or as Acadia suggested, maybe even a bank deposit box).

Do you periodically image or backup any of your other drives?

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BB
http://barrypatch.net

I partition but not for separating the OS from data. My C: is a 240GB SSD that is mostly C: but it does have a 50GB partition that I use as a scratch or working drive for converting videos. BTW, An SSD does not actually partition. The partitioning is virtual and just for convenience. This is due to how an SSD is put together and to allow the drive's writes to be spread out over the drive to help prolong the life of the drive.

I do partition my other internal drives. I have a 1TB drive that is partitioned for my data and also for images. Data is on one partition and images on the other. I also have a 4TB drive that is for my media. This is partitioned just for the reason that Windows 7 can not totally use a drive that is over 3TB.

I, like Patty, feel that my data is safer off of the OS drive for the same reasons. Of course, in my case it is not so much another partition as it is a totally different drive.

I do use two images on both my internal and an external. One image is just the OS on each device and the other is OS and data. I also have two redundant data backups. One is that the data is synced between my desktop and laptop. The other is that I have another copy of my data on an internal drive. It boils down to my having 4 backups of my data, two imaged and two the sync between my systems and the raw backup on the internal. Between it all I also have 4 images of my OS.

I also use One Drive lightly but not for much more than my music. I HAVE considered doing another OS image to a folder in my local One Drive folder which would automatically sync to the One Drive Cloud. I DO have plenty of One Drive space to do this, a bit over 1TB, and, since my One Drive folder is on my data drive, it would not hurt me locally. This is something that I think about but doubt that I'll actually do.

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Thanks for your response, Patty. I totally agree and I do have separate backups for all my data......probably an overkill, since I am somewhat paranoid about my data (some of which goes back 25 years). I actually back up my data 4 different ways on a weekly basis....these Backups are staggered (Sun & Wed), so my data is never more than 3 or 4 days old. And thanks to your recommendation, I also use SyncToy weekly to back up many of my more important data files to an external.

But except for my older critter photos/videos, all my data resides right there on my C: drive, along with the OS and my programs.

Couple of related questions if you don't mind:
(1) If I understand you correctly, then as an example the program MS Word would be on your C: drive, but the documents would be on a separate partition (also on C: drive?)?
(2) How do you back up your data files, since they are contained on a separate partition and not included in the image backup? I've never done it, but does Windows Backup let you do just the data files w/o creating a system image?

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BB
http://barrypatch.net

Well on my business backup, I actually have an automatic incremental every 30 minutes, I update my instant recovery archive twice during day. Also I use AJCactive backup which saves a version of the data any time the file is closed. At the end of the day the data is uploaded to rackspace services and the data is also sync'd to the other machine.

I don't feel I am much at risk from the data on one partition.

"C" is not really a designation for a piece of hardware. If it is the only partition on your system hard drive, then you can refer to it as C, but it really does confuse the issue. "C" is a partition, and if you only have one partition on the drive, it's just as easy to refer to it as the C drive. But it is really only a partition on your main drive. If you go into Disk Management, you will see the actual physical hard drives referred to by numbers (1,2, etc.).

[C was the designation given by Windows for the first internal fixed hard drive, going back to the beginning of internal fixed hard drives. Drive letters A and B were reserved for floppy disk drives, and still are.]

So my 1 TB hard drive is partitioned into C (292 GBs), and D (638 GBs). There are also a couple of very small partitions that don't show up in Windows Explorer, but they show up in Disk Management. One is a System Reserved partition of 100 MB, created by Windows during installation; and another is a Recovery Partition created by Windows 10 during installation, of 450 MBs - this is a new thing with Windows 10. Those two partitions are not given drive letters by Explorer and cannot be accessed directly either. They are added to the system image by default, at least System Reserve is.

When you set up a partitioned drive, you install your programs on C (in my case - I used to even have 3 partitions, one for system, one for programs, and one for data, but it was unnecessarily cumbersome) as usual. Your Profile User data folders are also set up on C. You would then use the property sheets of those folders (Contacts, Desktop, Documents, etc.) to move those to another partition, and then restore the data to those folders on the new partition. With the default user folders now on D, Windows File History (the name of the file backup utility) automatically backs up those folders from the D partition where they live to your external drive. It knows where they are, in other words.

You have the option of what partitions to include in your image. You could still do an image of C and include D, but then a restore becomes C and D also. I don't want to have to restore my data when I need to restore my system.

File History is the new name for Windows Backup (in 8 and 10), and it is simply data files. It runs automatically, continuously, as long as it is turned on. By default it runs every hour, but you can set it to run as often as every 10 minutes. It will copy only new and changed files.

System Image must be run manually, it is no longer part of any backup scheduling. You could, of course, create a Scheduled Task to run it automatically.

Hope that covers everything.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

Thanks, Jay. You are so thorough in your responses, a trait I recognized years ago when you assisted me in setting up a Windows XP Virtual PC (which I still use to this day).

As you can see in my response to Patty above, I also back my data up 4 different ways.

A few related questions if you don't mind:
(1) I am probably going to be getting my first SSD on my new PC. Do you like yours and does it indeed improve your system performance?
(2) Have you found the SSD to be reliable? I know in the last 30 years I have really never had an HDD fail; I thought I did a few months ago, but you successfully led me to suspect a motherboard problem on my 12 year old computer (I swapped ports and all is still well).
(3) I never got into syncing data between computers. What program or utility do you use to do that?
(4) What program do you use to do your data backups.....Windows Backup or something else?
(5) Why do you feel your data is safer off the OS Drive? Have you experienced a higher failure rate on C: drives, given that they are used so extensively?

Thanks again........

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BB
http://barrypatch.net

BBarry, please see my most recent post above. You have some misconceptions about C.

Two points. Peter gives you his data backup scenario that shows how you can perfectly safely keep your data on the C partition. His is one solution, mine is another. Probably something that evolved over time due to different ways of putting together computers. Sounds like Peter buys his, for one thing, while I build mine. That means that I start with an empty drive and can partition away quickly and easily. When you buy computers they generally come partitioned as a single partition. It used to be impossible to change that partition structure without a third party program. Now, Disk Management lets you shrink the C drive and create another partition in the empty space. But you have to understand a few things about the procedure.

2nd point. Drives over time have consistently higher failure rates. Don't think a new one will behave like your old one. It is true that if you have never had a drive failure, your likelihood of having a failure is lower than for someone who has previously had drive failures; yet your likelihood of a failure is increased simply because of the quality of drive manufacture, and the increased density of data structures on the drive itself.

As to why people who have had drive failures will most likely to continue to have them, that is an electrical issue. You get around problems caused by your electrical company by using Uninterruptible Power Supplies that do voltage regulation.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

Wow does it, and I thank you. You educated me on things I didn't know and/or things I had forgotten. For example, I forgot that you can include more than one partition when creating a system image. So I am beginning to appreciate the fact that I could do two system images, one with (e.g., C & D) and one without data files (C only).

And not being familiar with Win 10, I didn't know about File History, system image creation now being manual, etc.

I do use Disk Management, so I was familiar with drives being referred to as numbers and that the letter designation is for partitions. But since my Disk 0 is not partitioned, I just call it my C: drive.

Just curious, with File History do you still use SyncToy?

I'm learning a lot, and maybe more so if/when I ever start using Win 10.

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BB
http://barrypatch.net

1) Yes, of course my SSD increases performance. The read/write speed is dramatically faster.

2) I can't really respond as I've only had my SSD for a few months. As of yet I've had no issues.

3) I use Microsoft's Sync Toy. Just set up a schedule. Of course both systems must be turned on and a network between the systems has to have been established.

4) Other than the data backup done by half of my system images my data is backed up the old fashioned way. I drag and drop to a backup folder.

5) The answer is obvious. If your OS drive is compromised by an infection you can no longer trust the data being accessed. Here is an area where Pete and I differ as to opinion. His security and backup solutions are absolutely excellent... Sadly they are not useable for the average user. Pete has all this covered and I have applauded his efforts. His methods are just not something that is going to happen on a normal user's system. I hate to say it, as I have much respect for Pete's opinions, but Pete's solutions really do not apply to the average user as the average user would not keep up with the necessities of a system set up by Pete's standards.

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In my opinion, today's SSDs are just as reliable, maybe even more, than mechanical drives because they have no moving parts. Yes, when SSDs were first created there were reliability issues just as there is with any new technology. But most of today's SSDs have five year warranties, show me an installed mechanical drive with a warranty that gets even close to that. I believe some Western Digital drives used to have a 5-year warranty, do they still? Some Verbatim drives have 7-year but I believe they are only external drives.

Now Peter's situation may be unique because on a normal day he does so much testing which includes doing complete c:drive restores. SSDs used to electrically degrade after a while but I believe that in the most part has been fixed. After three years the built-in SSD utility still shows all of my electrical sectors, or whatever that are called, as 100% alive but of course I do not torture my c:drive like Peter does.

After three years my pc still boots up almost instantly, I love it.
Acadia

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The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson

Hi Acadia and all

Still working on the 1st post you requested, but a comment here. What makes my situation more unique is 1 of my desktops is for my business, in which I have 5 employees and around 100 active clients. I don't keep a single piece of data for my business, it's all on the computer, so not loosing data is critical. Also as Craig over at Sandboxie said, when answering the question is it good enough to rely on Sandboxie alone(answer was no) also said 1 backup was like having no backups. I couldn't agree more.

Actually learning the setup I have isn't difficult, you just have to want to do it.

Acadia, thanks for the comments regarding SSD's. The new computer I'm ordering from Velocity Micro comes with a 250GB SSD, and for $115 I can upgrade it to a 500GB which is what I'm going to do. This will be my first SSD......tower will also include two 2TB HDD's.

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BB
http://barrypatch.net

Wow, now THAT sounds like a nice system. Just make sure the SSD has a 5-year warranty which I believe all of the higher quality ones do now days. No moving parts also creates a lot less heat.
Acadia

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The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson

bbarry, yes I use SyncToy in addition to File History.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

What heat? With my 2 older systems, there was enough heat to heat my apartment in the winter(yep small apartment). With these two newer systems there is no heat at the fan vents. I have to turn the heat in the apartment now. These Velocity Micro machines run extremely cool because the internal layout is designed for that.

Ha ha... the cost of progress!

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

I also back up all of the data on my C drive. If I download anything from the internet that also installed onto the C drive as well.

A backup on the C drive of data stored on the C drive is not, by definition, a backup. A backup is supposed to be on a separate drive, preferably external, in case anything happened to your computer or C drive, you would still have a copy of your data. If you backup C on C, you would lose your data and your backup at the same time.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

Great point. But I didn't think about it. I always keep on my data on my C drive as a back up. But ever don't keep a copy of it. For the next time I will keep this in mind. Thank you!