"esierka"
Should I be concerned with Acronis installing stuff that adds overhead to the system and decreases performance.

No, as you can disable all Acronis services when not in use. You can also skip loading corresponding Acronis "sys" files with the help of SysInternals "Autoruns" utility. I use Acronis 2012 on a Win 7 Pro (x64) audio system only and am using the above method. 

  You can also get these hardware boxes now for cheap that can have 2 drives in them, connect it via esata and stick 2 identical drive in there, one is your main drive, the other just an empty identical drive, then just hit the clone button and it clones one drive to the other, don't even need to have the machine on. 

Kenneth by the way do you a rack mounted hdd solution ? 

You can also get these hardware boxes now for cheap that can have 2 drives in them, connect it via esata and stick 2 identical drive in there, one is your main drive, the other just an empty identical drive, then just hit the clone button and it clones one drive to the other, don't even need to have the machine on. 

The latest generation of HD docking stations (USB3 and eSATA) have the ability to clone a HD.
Many eSATA controllers are SATA-II.  If you have a good USB3 controller, you can get a USB3 HD docking station that holds two drives... and can run in RAID-0.  Put a pair of fast 1TB HDs in it... and that'll net you 260+MB/Sec.

I have True Image 2013 installed.  It is not interferring with Sonar (or anything else).   I don't have the try and decide or other options enabled.  I just use the basic full hard drive backups (no incremental).

Zo


Kenneth by the way do you a rack mounted hdd solution ? 

Not seen any but haven't been looking much, there's some but they are for larger IT stuff and pretty expensive.

I have a closet with ventilation where I keep my satelite pc's and external drives so it doesn't need to be tidy, just shut the door, out of sight out of mind :D

If you look at the error rate, say, on the Seagate Barracuda, for example, it lists as one read error in 10 to the 14 power reads - that is 100 terabBITs or about 12 TeraBYTEs.

I have 6 drives each is 2 TB, so I probably have a few bit errors here and there.

I made a shell script using md5deep that will go through my drives and create an MD5 database (checksum) of all the files on the drive. It takes a while to run, but I do it now and then. It does several things - makes me feel a bit more secure that nothing changed and it also makes sure that every file is still readable.

Here is that script if anyone want it, you will need to download md5deep and make some path and text changes in the script for your machine.

I also mod the registry to provide a right-click property for the drives:

Regedit:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\MD5 Hash Drive\command]
@="runas /profile /user:Administrator \"cmd.exe /k \\\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\md5deep\\md5-hash-drive.bat\\\" %1"


md5-hash-drive.bat:


:: md5-hash-drive.bat <drive>
:: 2011 Sep 08 - Jim Hurley


:: Make hash table database of all files in drive
:: Input - drive (ie C:)
:: Output - file created  %MD5_DB_LOC%\<drive letter>-Drive-<date time>.md5
::          then a symlink is made to this file called <drive-letter>.md5 (i.e., without the time)
:: Errors to file  %MD5_DB_LOC%\<drive letter>-Drive-md5deep-errors.txt
::
:: Note: configure your date and time format ('Region Setting' control panel) for yyyy-mm-dd format or change the date time function below
:: In a shell context menu this can run as administrator if 'Secondary Logon' service is running
::
@echo off


rem set the location and file owner
set MD5_DB_LOC=J:\MD5
set HASH_DRIVE_LETTER=%MD5_DB_LOC:~0,1%
set OWNER=Jim


::Get the date
FOR /f "tokens=1 " %%G IN ('echo %date%') DO SET _ymd=%%G
:: Get the time
FOR /f "tokens=1-4 delims=:. " %%G in ('echo %time%') do call :s_setvar %%G-%%H-%%I-%%J
goto :last


:s_setvar
SET _mstime=%10
goto :eof


:last


if [%1]==[] goto :syntax
:: check for drive ':'
set _param=%1
if [%_param:~1,1%] neq [:] goto :syntax


set _drive=%~d1
set _drive_letter=%_drive:~0,1%
if [%_drive_letter%]==[] goto :syntax
set _filename=%_drive_letter%-Drive-%_ymd%@%_mstime%.md5
set _hash_file=%TEMP%\%_filename%
set _target=%MD5_DB_LOC%\%_filename%
set _error=%TEMP%\%_drive_letter%-Drive-md5deep-errors.txt
set _symlink=%_drive_letter%-Drive.md5


:: does drive exist?
pushd %_drive_letter%:\
if errorlevel 1 goto :eof
%_drive_letter%:


echo Making hash table database for Drive=%_drive_letter%: in %_hash_file%
:: recursive (-r) hash of all files in drive with asterisk (-k) for md5summer (-l = relative path)
md5deep64.exe -r -l -k . > %_hash_file% 2>%_error%


rem change directory to hash database location
cd %MD5_DB_LOC%
%HASH_DRIVE_LETTER%:


:: move hash file to database location
move %_hash_file% %MD5_DB_LOC% 1>nul


rem change ownership
icacls %_target% /setowner %OWNER% 1>nul


rem make new symlink in generic form <drive letter>-Drive.md5;no date or time reference.
if exist %_symlink% del /F /A:L %_symlink%
mklink %_symlink% %_target% 1>nul


echo New hash table database made for Drive %_drive_letter%:
echo -----------------------------------------
echo.
echo This is a list of the drive database symlinks:
dir /N /a:l /b /O:N /P %MD5_DB_LOC%\*.md5 | more
echo This is a list of the database files (you may wish to delete old ones):
dir /N /a:-l /b /O:N /P %MD5_DB_LOC%\*.md5 | more
echo Error report listing unhashed files (permissions, system files, etc.):
pause
more %_error%
popd
goto :eof


:syntax
echo Syntax:
echo md5-hash-drive [drive]
echo e.g., md5-hash-drive c:
goto :eof


:eof

Forgot this - the verifier and regedit key:

Regedit:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\Verify Drive Hashes\command]
@="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\md5deep\\md5-verify-drive.bat %1"



md5-verify-drive.bat:


:: md5-verify-drive.bat <drive>
:: 2011 Sep 8 - Jim Hurley


:: Verify hash of all files in drive
:: Input - drive (ie C:)
:: Output - file created %TEMP%\Verify-Drive-<drive letter-md5-<date time>.txt
:: Errors to file %TEMP%\Verify-Drive-errors-<drive letter>-<date time>.txt
:: The drive hash table database was previously made (by md5-hash-drive.bat) and is in %MD5_DB_LOC%
:: That file is named <drive-letter>-Drive.md5
::
@echo off
set MD5_DB_LOC=J:\MD5


::Get the date
FOR /f "tokens=1 " %%G IN ('echo %date%') DO SET _ymd=%%G
:: Get the time
FOR /f "tokens=1-4 delims=:. " %%G in ('echo %time%') do call :s_setvar %%G-%%H-%%I-%%J
goto :last


:s_setvar
SET _mstime=%10
goto :eof


:last


if [%1]==[] goto :syntax
:: check for drive ':'
set _param=%1
if [%_param:~1,1%] neq [:] goto :syntax


set _drive=%~d1
set _drive_letter=%_drive:~0,1%
if [%_drive_letter%]==[] goto :syntax


:: does drive exist?
pushd %_drive_letter%:\
if errorlevel 1 goto :eof


%_drive_letter%:


set _output=%TEMP%\Verify-Drive-%_drive_letter%-md5-%_ymd%@%_mstime%.txt
set _error=%TEMP%\Verify-Drive-errors-%_drive_letter%-%_ymd%@%_mstime%.txt
set _hash_file=%MD5_DB_LOC%\%_drive_letter%-Drive.md5
if NOT exist %_hash_file% (
    echo No hash file for drive: %_drive_letter%.
    echo Run md5-hash-drive.bat
    popd
    goto :eof )


:: delete old copy
if exist %_output% del /F %_output%
if exist %_error% del /F %_error%


:: quit if any errors so far
if errorlevel 1 goto :eof


echo Verifying all files on drive %_drive_letter%: against hash table database: %_hash_file%
echo.


:: check the hash file list
md5deep64.exe -x %_hash_file% -r . > %_output% 2> %_error%


echo All done with drive %_drive_letter%!
echo ------------------------
echo.
echo Output: Files that have different hash values:
more %_output%
echo.
echo Errors: (usually system files, permission problems, etc.)
more %_error%
echo.
popd
pause
goto :eof


:syntax
echo Syntax:
echo md5-verify-drive [drive]
echo e.g., md5-verify-drive c:
pause
:eof

I combined all my MD5Deep programming resources and documents in one spot.
Download and extract the zip file then read the ReadMe.txt file for instructions on usage.

You can search for md5deep and download it, it is free and very good to have.

MD5 Stuff
Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this thread, but I think these tools are really useful.