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Best solution
If
I were you, I'd move all of my private files from C: to D:,
and then get in the habits of doing routine drive
images of C:
and saving all private data files to D: from now on.
When C: is small and private date files are stored elsewhere,
restoring C: is straightforward, and it does not result in
deleting all private files created after the latest drive image
was written.
So, I offer this recommendation:
(1) move private data files to D:
(2) shrink C: to 30-50 GB, using a good freeware program
like Partition Wizard, and then enlarge D: by the same amount
you have shrunk C:
http://www.partitionwizard.com/
(3) install a second HDD and
partition it the same as C: and D:
e.g. H: and I:
(4) set your drive image program to write drive images to H:
to prevent armature thrashing during that task;
(5) after a drive image is written to H:,
copy it to D: for redundancy, also to prevent
armature thrashing;
(6) after that drive image is copied to D:,
then copy it from D: to I:, also to prevent
armature thrashing;
(7) use a serial numbering sequence e.g.
images.001, images.002, images.003 etc
to serialize each drive image folder;
(8) when you get this sequence going well,
write a batch
file that does steps (5), (6) and (7)
semi-automatically;
(9) periodically (you decide how often) backup all
private date files from D: to I:
The advantage of this sequence is that either HDD can fail,
and you will have a working drive image of C: on the
one that did not fail.
The probability that both HDDs fail simultaneously
is extremely small, assuming that your input power is
reliable e.g. with a quality UPS.
The other advantage of this approach is that C: is "short-stroked"
resulting in much better HDD performance with frequently used OS files.
To see the benefits of short-stroking graphically, study this:
http://www.supremelaw.org/systems/io.tests/platter.tran...
Likewise, you can get fancy, if you want, and move
your Windows paging file to H:, and make it perfectly
contiguous
using the "CONTIG" freeware. Likewise, you can move
your browser caches
to H: as well, to achieve greater
parallelism with concurrent I/O to C: and H: .
I hope this helps.
MRFS