Is it possible to do a full image backup and then use SmartWare to backup my data files?

I just purchased a 3TB My Book Essential drive to backup my new Windows 7 system. I would like to first do a full disk backup of my system (using Acronis True Image WD Edition) and then use the WD Smartware to do a continuous backup of my data files as it was designed to do. I have read through both the WD SmartWare User Manual which came with the drive and the on-line Acronis True Image WD manual and I do not see any indication that they either work together or do not.

I would like to know if this is a feasible situation and how I might go about performing such a task. I can envision a couple of ways about how I might do this but I am hoping that someone can steer me in the right direction so that I don’t waste a lot of trial-and-error and possible heartbreak before I begin.

Thanks in advance for any information that you might be able to provide.

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The best way to make the Acronis image is to make the rescue disk first. Boot from the CD that loads a little Linux app so Windows isn’t actually running. Then you don’t have problems with things running in the background like AV program updating or scanning.

Joe

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Joe, thanks for the reply but I am afraid that I haven’t explained my question properly. Both the creation of the Acronis disk image and using the SmartWare seem pretty straight forward when performed individually on separate backup disks. But what I want to do is to, first, create an full image of my system disk on my 3TB WD drive and then be able to use the SmartWare on that same disk to perform the automatic backup protection of just my data files.

So can I have the Acronis image file (for example, SystemBackup_mm_dd_yyyy1.tib) on the 3TB backup disk and will the SmartWare just ignore that file and perform automatic backup protection as stated in the user manual? Or will the SmartWare fail because there are files (the .tib file) which are not part of its default software organization?

I also wondered that if the above scenario would not work, if it was possible to partition the 3TB backup drive into two partitions: one for the Acronis system .tib file and the second for the WD SmartWare. Would the WD SmartWare work in a smaller space than the default size that it was shipped with or would it fail?

These questions would be moot if the WD SmartWare would perform an image backup itself, but it does not. Just backing up my data files without having an system image backup doesn’t provide the necessary protection that I would like.

If none of the above scenarios are possible then I will be forced to just utilize the WD Essential drive as a “dumb” external drive (thus losing the space on the drive on which the WD software resides) and buying a separate piece of software which can do both image and incremental data backups.

Again, I would greatly appreciate anyone’s thoughts on these matters.

I don’t know why it wouldn’t work with both. Just make a separate folder for the Acronis image. Try backups with both. Then open the Acronis on desktop and validate the image again to double check. If there is a problem you can delete them. To make things easier I partitioned my PC HD with the system and programs on one and data on the other. It’s a 750 G HD and I allowed 100 for OS and the rest for data.  That way the system image takes about 25-30 min to make and validate and about 15 to restore. The image will be much smaller also.

Joe

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