Backing up to external hard drives -- file backup or disk backup?

[pmulcahy]

I back up to a pair of external hard drives connected by USB2. Is is better to use a File Backup Set or a Disk Backup Set?

[wscott44]

 

I use DISK backup. The backup files get broken up into 600MB chunks. If you use FILE, just one file will be used. Depending on your OS and whether or not you have NTFS, your FILE backup could run out of space quickly.

 

Are you concerned that disk backup will claim the whole disk for itself?

 

Wayne Scott

[pmulcahy]

Yes, that's absolutely my concern. I use disk backup, and the size of the backup sets seem to be growing by leaps and bounds. (BTW, my OS is Windows XP Home, and I do use NTFS.)

[tortoise]

Paul I use disk backup with my clients and you have two choices when your backup set approaches the size of the disk you are using:

 

1. If you need to maintain a complete history of the state of your drive then just add another drive. My understanding is a DISK backup can span onto another HD, while a file backup is limited to capacity of the one media it was started on.

 

2. The more common scenario is to do a “recycle” backup that is essentially like starting over, with a corresponding decrease in the size of the set.