Backup HD

[Compu02]

Hey all,

I know I can backup my computers hard drive to network drive on my main computer but was wondering if there was a way to download the whole 3gig backup file onto a CD? Will it be able to be compressed down to a 800mb cd?

Thanks,

Compu02

[Alfons]

You can probably do it on 2 or 3 CD's (spanned volume) but I don't think you're going to find a backup utility that will give you just one.

The Utilities with the best pedigree are Norton (Symantec) Ghost 2002 and 2003, and Power Quest's Drive Image 2002. Both utilities have their issues so if you decide to use one, you should do more than just blindly making backups and hoping that when you need the backup you'll be able to restore it. Test out the whole thing so that you have the confidence things are recoverable. Other than that, Ghost is harder to set up and doesn't look as pretty as Drive Image.

[Pondlife]

You can see how the file will compress by using WinRAR. I generally prefer this to WinZip and it will scan the files selected for archiving and give you an estimate on end file size. I wouldn't think though that you could get your 3GB down to 800MB - as Alfons said you'll need to split the archive over 2 or 3 volumes (which both WinRAR and WinZip can do for you).

I was in this situation, and picked up an old SCSI DAT drive - each tape only holds 4GB native, but saves a lot of CDs...

[Compu02]

Something was mentioned about a ScSI Dat Drive where can I find one?

Compu02

[Pondlife]

I nabbed mine out of an old server that was being scrapped at work. Good places to get hold of similar kit would be computer faires, independant computer shops or eBay I would guess.