Finally backing-up my PC...New question 7-31-13

[Omega Man]

Got a free 500G external drive that I'm using to back-up my system. Does the initial back-up always take a very long time? It's been a couple hours and it's only about 20% complete. I do have a dozen 2-5G games, dozens of movies and tv episodes, and about 20 Gs of music. It's using a USB 2.0 connection.

~O~

 

[Ansimp]

I try and do the file transfer via sata where possible. Lately every time I do something seems to take hours. New iPhone from backup takes about an hour at least. But there is about 10g of files and apps to transfer and install.

 

[Omega Man]

I have hundreds of Gigs to transfer... :doh:

~O~

 

[Steve83]

Yup, it's time consuming.

 

[dan filipi]

Yep, over usb 2.0 will take awhile.

 

[Omega Man]

Can I do stuff like this while it's going through this process? It's only using 30-45% of my processor and 30% of my RAM.

~O~

 

[dan filipi]

What kind of backup are you doing?
Using software or drag and drop backup?

Most backup software now will "shadow copy" so everything gets backed up but if your backing up by drag and drop and accessing those files then it might not get backed up properly.

 

[Omega Man]

I don't know...I just plugged the drive in and Windows 7 offered a list of choices backup PC, use as extra storage, make PC faster(?) and a couple others.

~O~

 

[dan filipi]

It's Windows 7 backup then most likely.
It's ok to use the computer while it's running.

 

[Offcenter]

Yep, hundreds of gigabytes is gonna take quite a while over USB 2.
I suggest that you go on vacation or something. It'll be done
by the time you get home.
:smilie_happy:

 

[Omega Man]

New back-up question...

Every Sunday my PC automatically starts a back-up. The 500 gig HDD now has only 39 gigs left and I don't think there is room for another complete back-up. Do I delete the current back-up and let the process continue?

~O~

 

[dan filipi]

You must be backing up everything on the computer then.
Looks like you'll need another 500 gig drive to continue....



Just kidding.

Ya really only need to backup main stuff like documents, user accounts, and windows. Windows only if your going to use the drive to restore windows.
Sounds like you have it setup to do a full backup every sunday. That will burn through the space fast.
Should be doing incremental backups instead.