Help on backing up

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Running Win10 Pro 2004 on a Dell XPS 15 (9500) w/ 1TB SSD and 64GB RAM.

I am embarrassed to say I’ve never prepared any official backups for my computers – I’ve simply relied upon things like DropBox and OneDrive to safeguard my files.  Now that I have a new laptop, however, I’d like to be responsible.  Problem is, I don’t even know what to search for.  I’ve long heard of terms like Backup, Image, Mirror Image, Clone, System Recovery, etc., but I don’t know 1) what any of them really mean, 2) how they differ, 3) if there are other terms I should be aware of, and 4) which ones I should do.  I didn’t find what I was looking for on the Bott Report, and my searches of AskWoody consistently turned up thousands of posts.  Could someone please point me to a reputable webpage or site that offers the kind of guidance I need?  Thanks much —

RVAUser

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[CraigS26]

You won’t find exactly what you want All in one place or on ONE PAGE. You’ll ultimately decide by reading places/people you trust and go by their recommendation. I’m an amateur and I’ve learned much via daily Forum visits and reading manual below – Over Time. No quick way to Know it all….

I’d recommend Macrium Reflect which has a Free Ver BUT I’d get the Home Ver @ $69.95. I paid $35 in April ’17 to upgrade from Ver 6 to current Ver 7, so versions haven’t changed yearly / Upgrade NOT requd.

Has the most helpful Forum and “formal” sppt group I know of. They’ll talk you thru 1st setup IF you ask, but reading manual link below first before asking is fair to ask. A lot of Forum posts are way more technical than me but look enough and you’ll get a feel for more basic questions and replies. Never have had a real problem or Recovery of an Image that failed – they’ll help when that randomly occurs and it likely won’t be the App’s fault.

Some helpful links below …….

https://www.macrium.com/products/home
https://forum.macrium.com/Forum23.aspx
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/New+in+Macrium+Reflect+7.3

W10 Pro 22H2 / Hm-Stdnt Ofce '16 C2R / Macrium Pd vX / GP=2 + FtrU=Semi-Annual + Feature Defer = 1 + QU = 0

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by CraigS26.

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RVAUser, GoneToPlaid

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Seconded. And I have had Acronis and others. Now loyal to Marium. Period.

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[CADesertRat]

RVAUser wrote:

Problem is, I don’t even know what to search for.  I’ve long heard of terms like Backup, Image, Mirror Image, Clone, System Recovery, etc., but I don’t know 1) what any of them really mean, 2) how they differ, 3) if there are other terms I should be aware of, and 4) which ones I should do

https://blog.storagecraft.com/disk-imaging-vs-disk-cloning/

Personally I clone all my C drives twice a month with a program called “Casper” which has never failed me over the years. Since it’s an exact image of my C drive, I can just swap out the old and put in the copy and it boots to the point in time it was cloned. It has saved me from drive failure a few times. It’s not free but the price was worth it to me.

Anything I want to save in between cloning, I save to my D drive and also a 256 GB USB 3.0 drive (documents, downloads, etc.)

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by CADesertRat.

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RVAUser

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[GoneToPlaid]

Same here. I too have tried other backup programs. Macrium Reflect is the only one which has consistently worked for me.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by GoneToPlaid.

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Cybertooth

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Imaging. And it can be scheduled to update Incrementally or Differentially and that will take a read or two to understand.

I do a full image 1st of the month. An Incremental in the middle of every night. And a differential every Sunday night instead of the Incremental. I am never more than 24 hours stale on my data.

And BTW, MANY people recommend Macrium Reflect free as all you need. I agree. I do not recall buying the full product for a feature I could not live without, but rather because they deserved my support.

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RVAUser

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Image: The imaging software makes a copy of everything on your computer (boot sector, partitions, OS, programs, data, everything), and puts it in a single compressed file. When you restore this image, it expands the contents into the same condition as the day the image was made. The image takes up less space than the original system, because it is compressed.

Clone: An exact copy of the system as it is, bit by bit to a different location/drive. It is the same size as the original, there is no compression.

Recovery media (DVD or bootable USB): Bootable media from which contains a copy of the backup software and allows you to access an image in order to restore it to your computer.

 

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RVAUser

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For me, a weekly clone of my SSD C: drive (Windows + My Documents + files not yet offsite) is sufficient plus a quarterly clone of my 3TB ‘long term storage’ drive which is everything from downloaded videos, my own photography, and Sunday sermons from church that I email every Sunday.  A second copy of each goes offsite in case I come home to a burned down, blown away, or empty house.

I’ve had SSDs become unreliable and HDs fail.  So for me, having a ‘ready to use’ drive is the way to go.  I also do a lot of ‘tinkering’ with Windows 10 disabling this and that, removing useless baggage software as well as files like individual language files and fonts I will never use.  It’s not uncommon for me to end up with an unbootable C: drive.  Before I tinker, though, I’ll create a restore point that I can recover from.  At worse, pop in the C: clone from last Sunday night.  Having all my drives in ‘slide bays’ makes everything very easy.

My laptop is a different story.  I only use that when traveling which, at present, has been nonexistent for the past 8 months or so.  For me, the laptop is a ‘partial copy’ of my big computer and contains only files (mostly videos) I plan to access while away.  I’ll copy those files over there using WiFi.  I even make a copy of my Firefox bookmarks over there as well.  But as I have all my money-related sites in a single bookmark folder, I immediately delete that folder after making the copy.  I should note that I previously had ‘laptop only’ files but gave up that idea as cross-synchronizing and making backups using an external USB SATA slide bay was a hassle.

As a mainframer starting in the punched card and tape days, I’ve long known about incremental backups and in the mainframe world, that made sense when tape drives and tapes were slow and expensive.  The problem is that every ‘increment’ must be available when needed, pristine, and mounted in the correct sequence.  These days, cloud storage seems to be a reasonable solution for business and personal use.  I prefer to not use the cloud due to its impact on computer speed as it is always performing a re-synchronization every few minutes.

As for ‘full backups’, the problem in my mind is one has to first get a non-bootable computer booted with something that has not only the operating system on it but the backup/restore software as well.  For most home users, it might be difficult to locate an original Windows CD or USB drive, and a copy of backup/restore software.  I have a fellow mainframer & PC friend nearby that on a GOOD day, may be able to find 25% of his installation software.  A couple of computer neophyte friends of mine have no idea what happened to the CDs they installed.

As has been mentioned countless times in many threads in this site and on others, it’s not IF a drive will fail, but WHEN.  And as Murphy postulated and we’ve all proven more than enough times, “If something bad can happen, it WILL!”  I’ll add Bruces’ (me) postulate: “At the worst possible time!”…like leaving to catch a flight and your car won’t start…

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RVAUser

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Get an external USB hard disk – $40.
Download one of the free backup apps – Aomei, EaseUs, Paragon, Macrium etc.
Make an image backup to the external disk.

See this newsletter article for additional information.

cheers, Paul

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RVAUser, Kirsty

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