The computer I'm backing up has two drives, one for the OS and apps, one for data. I'm using drive backup for both because some time in the past it seemed to me that the file/folder backup was not doing what I expected.
But I'm upgrading to 2011 and devising a new backup strategy. It makes sense to me to continue to use the drive backup for the OS & apps drive since I'm less likely to be aware of when I'm upgrading/adding one thing or another, and if I need to do a restore am more likely to need to restore the entire drive to a particular time.. But I'm wondering what the advantages/disadvantages are for the data drive when it comes to drive backup vs. file/folder backup especially given that I do, indeed, want to do regular full & differential (daily) backups of ALL the files on the drive.
Please note: I don't use "My documents" or any of Microsoft's other "user friendly" options. The data drive is large and has a deep and wide directory structure. I would rarely expect to have to restore the entire drive but might frequently want to restore individual files or a particular directory tree or branch. It seems to me that when I started using 2010, the file/folder backup insisted on skipping lots of files I wanted backed up no matter what I did. This could, of course, have been user error from misunderstanding how to set things up. But now, as I said, I'm revamping my backup procedures and am wondering what the relative advantages/disadvantages are.
Is there, for example, a difference with respect to full vs. differential backups between the two strategies? Or the ease of restoring files to a certain point in time? Or a difference in disk usage or backup/restore times? (The NAS I've got right now is, to be kind, slow.)
