Is a CTM protected drive the same as having a backup? No it is not.

[Guest]

[captainsticks]

To use CTM protection on a single drive and think your data is as safe as having a backup drive is in no way correct. If the CTM protected drive is not recoverable, your data could well be lost forever.
This quote below from Panic will help explain the reasoning behind this. Thanks.

A backup that is stored on the same physical device as the source is no backup - it's an accident waiting to happen.

The CTM setup I strongly advocate is to start with two spearate physical drives - one for the O/S and apps and the other for user generated data.

The first drive is CTM protected so we can quickly get back to a stable, know operational state.

The second drive (the user generated data drive) is not CTM protected but is backed up to a different device (or location).

The logic behind this is; O/S and apps I can reinstall (time consuming and painful but I can do it) - they are reasonably static. User generated data is, by its nature, dynamic and, unless you have an eidetic memory, cannot be redone by the user.

The whole concept behind a backup is to safeguard the objects that you cannot easily recreate in an accurate and timely manner.

Cheers,
Ewen :-)

[Tech]

CTM was never a backup tool... The technology is to use the free space in the protected drives to store snapshots of the file system. It's a perfect system restore.
It's a pity that it is not being developed.

[james321888]

The benefits of using CTM to protect ONLY "the System Partition" and using other conventional-backup methods to protect data and other files are two folded:

1/ in the event of CTM crash the user would not LOSE the vital data.
2/ the time needed to restore a snapshot would be reduced since CTM's protected area is limited to the system partition.

For those folks who use CTM as a mean of system restoration as well as system backup, DON'T count on it as your last resort ! It's not a replacement for the conventional backup done with CTM uninstalled. ( and ideally the backup should be saved on a different physical disk )
(Also, I think the more senior/advanced users should come and participate more just to make the forums less monotone !)

[John Buchanan]

I agree, backups should always be on a separate physical disk, or even a separate computer.
I have and use a separate dedicated drive just for system backups.
With drives being so inexpensive these days, it is wise to invest in one just for this purpose.

[james321888]

Right on the spot, John.    With the price of HDD these days, I think it should be a standard to have two HDDs on any computer setup.

[captainsticks]

+1 They are very surprisingly cheap compared to other life nessessities.

[BoredNow]

What I really like is that, if a virus sets itself up to autorun at start-up, CTM can
be run before it starts. It's another way to thwart malware.
For me, that's the best feature of CTM.

Of course, I never get to use this feature, because CIS/Sandboxie stops evil
things from happening to my system.

[Tech]

What I really like is that, if a virus sets itself up to autorun at start-up, CTM can
be run before it starts. It's another way to thwart malware.
For me, that's the best feature of CTM.

Some rootkit just bypass CTM on MBR loading. It's NOT a panacea.

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