Windows 10 Backup Strategy Solution Suggestions

Page 3 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast

  1. Posts : 81
    Windows 10
       #21

    agent99 said:
    Preach all you want, but you will have a hard time convincing me that any backup program would be better than the KISS method I outlined above No need for backups!
    You must use a bare untweaked Windows without any apps installed. I only install Windows and my core apps ONCE.
    Tweaking Windows and the apps is usually a couple hour process.
    Then takes 5 minutes to make a Macrium image. And five minutes to restore.
    Much more simple than your method. Not preaching you can't do it your way. Whatever works for you.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 1,621
    Windows 10 Home
       #22

    agent99, you might want to explore AOMEI Backupper. It's interactive face is a bit friendlier and easier to use than most other backup / restore / cloning utilities. Again, nobody is preaching to you or at you -- the choice is always yours :)
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 1,621
    Windows 10 Home
       #23

    agent99's plan:
    - Have MS isos available for Win 7 and Win 10 for future clean installs.
    - Make recovery thumb drives for each OS (They may get system going without a complete re-install)
    - Keep all personal files like documents, photos, desktop on cloud storage (Dropbox/Gdrive in our case)
    - Copy Data disks and all personal files directly to external USB harddrive a couple of times a year as secondary backup.

    This plan should work just fine -- I would recommend using the external usb HD at least once weekly.
    You having ISOs handy is a great idea! I wish I had thought of that much earlier, years ago!

      My Computer


  4. Posts : 86
    windows 10
       #24

    Clive K said:
    I only install Windows and my core apps ONCE.
    Then you must have a version of Windows plus apps that NEVER go wrong. If so you are very fortunate, and really have no need for a backup program

    On my wife's Win10 install, only apps that are there are Thunderbird, Dropbox, Chrome and Open Office. If we were prepared to put up with the MS supplied apps, only Open Office would be required and not even that if you spring for 365. I am sure that that is type of installation that MS, Google and Apple envisage. Tweaking? Not really needed for basic user that uses a few apps plus mostly on-line sites.

    Despite the above, I will do a one time clone of existing Win10 SSD to the old 7200rpm drive. Swap drives to make sure it works, then store drive until next time an update kills the installation At least we will get running again and all files will be available from cloud and email on imap.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 86
    windows 10
       #25

    RolandJS said:
    agent99, you might want to explore AOMEI Backupper. It's interactive face is a bit friendlier and easier to use than most other backup / restore / cloning utilities. Again, nobody is preaching to you or at you -- the choice is always yours :)
    I did try it. At first could not get USB boot to work. Didn't realize how long it takes before anything appears on screen. Maybe due to USB 2.0? In any event it all worked, but have no way of testing it without some spare drives. I have one and will have another when I get home. Those will be used to clone existing working SSDS. Clones are easier to test - just swap drives.

    I do have a question about cloning. I have 256G SSDS on both Win7 and Win10 computers. Spare HDs are bigger - 300 or 350G, I think. I can clone to those OK. But if the clone ends up being bigger, perhaps a problem re-cloning to SSD if system fails (again!). I read that some will expand to full drive size, but surely that will cause a problem when trying to reclone to the smaller SSD?
    So do AOMEI and/or Macrium maintain exact drive size so there will be no problem re-cloning?
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 1,621
    Windows 10 Home
       #26

    I don't know the answers to your excellent cloning questions -- I'll be listening in and learning alongside you from the wisdom and experiences of others.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 1,579
    Windows 10 Pro
       #27

    agent99 said:
    ...So do AOMEI and/or Macrium maintain exact drive size so there will be no problem re-cloning?
    In Macrium, you can resize partitions on the fly, upwards or downwards. See Step 4 here: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/di...Cloning+a+disk

    Someone else will have to answer the AOMEI half of your question.

    Of course, the data itself has to fit regardless.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 86
    windows 10
       #28

    Word Man said:
    In Macrium, you can resize partitions on the fly, upwards or downwards. See Step 4 here: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/di...Cloning+a+disk
    Ok, so if we are creating a clone of existing 256GB ssd onto a 350GB hard drive, we can just do that without any size changes and leave 94GB of unallocated space? Then when we want to recover, the clone on the hard drive can be cloned back to the SSD? Just want to be sure there are no tricks in getting sizes correct.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 11,247
    Windows / Linux : Arch Linux
       #29

    Hi folks
    Use whatever backup system you prefer --I suspect the majority of this board tend to use Macrium - but the fact people are even having a discussion about it is a vast improvement -- people now are taking backups.

    For my recovery system - I have an SSD which can connect to a computer via SATA-->USB2 or USB3 connector. USB2 works well enough but USB3 is better. On this I have a Linux CENTOS system where I have also installed VMWARE and Windows 10 as a Virtual machine. Response time - especially on USB3 is 100% fine - probably faster than running NATIVE WINDOWS if the native windows OS is on a standard HDD. !!!!

    On the Windows machine I have basic Windows, Internet and Office 2016 (I use that on some sites as well as I want to use a different Language in Office sometimes -- I'm not for example when in Belgium going to send emails in French /Flemish(Dutch). !!!

    The Windows VM has Macrium etc and by adding any physical Windows HDD's as physical disks to the VM before booting up it will have access to any physical HDD needed. It also has a Partition manager which can be useful too. The Linux machine also has a partition manager installed (GPARTED) so double insurance if I need to mess around with HDD partitioning.

    Note though when booting the VM on a different machine to the one you created the VM on ensure to say I MOVED it rather than I COPIED it or you could run into Windows activation problems !!!!. In Virtual Machine parlance you say "Power on " rather than boot --it's the same thing though. !!

    On the Linux OS if I need to recover / backup data I use GRSYNC which is a really good DATA backup program - for example it will copy files which have changed, files that don't exist on the destination HDD and a load of other stuff. It also has SAMBA for networking and ntfs-3g which means it can read / write to Windows NTFS files.

    I also have a copy of my last Windows Macrium backup on the SSD - the Windows VM can restore this to the appropriate machine.

    Might be a bit complex to arrange this but it's great to have a really useful working totally PORTABLE version of Windows (works for any version of Windows) plus a Linux system -- it's done this way so unless you want to the local HDD's on the main machine are NOT TOUCHED in any way.

    Note for normal backups etc I use more standard methods -- Macrium nightly on Windows machines - then Grsync to load images from Windows machines to NAS server. These are then later copied to external HDD's and then kept off line - so there's a copy of the system on the windows client and 2 copies - one on NAS and another on external HDD. Data is copied regularly too -- once in a while I take a new complete copy but changes are all that's usually required - and things like multi-media (music etc) don't change much - at least on my system.

    In fact this post was done from my Windows 10 VM running from the Linux system described in the post (booted up from an external SSD and connected to a desktop computer via USB 3 port) . No problems with response time and even getting on ookla speed test around 850 Mb/s upload !!.


    Cheers
    jimbo
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 11,247
    Windows / Linux : Arch Linux
       #30

    agent99 said:
    Preach all you want, but you will have a hard time convincing me that any backup program would be better than the KISS method I outlined above No need for backups!
    Hi there

    Problem with your strategy is

    On a re-install apart from having to dig out install media for all your programs you'll need as well for these possible licences - serial numbers etc - and after a windows re-install those programs might not install - drivers missing or whatever. Often applications will continue to run after a windows update - but will fail when one tries to re-install them on a brand new windows system. Also the original drivers you may have had might not be available any more on the vendors web site - or vendor might be out of business. The install media might also have become unreadable too - that can happen easily with old CD's etc - assuming your machine even has a connectable cd device. External HDD's can also become unreadable so having more than one separate backup seems to be eminently sensible.

    Like all this stuff it really depends on what you use your computer for and what you have on it.

    Over the years I've always found a quick system backup the most satisfactory.

    On an average machine with an SSD as the backup medium - even connected via a USB it shouldn't take more than around 15 mins to backup or restore. I suspect if you ever have to re-install big complex things like photoshop and find the activation servers are unreachable you'll wish you HAD a system backup !!!.

    However if what works for you works --so be it but I really think that advice is not wise for thousands of users here - especially if their machines get infected or whatever or in the case of hardware malfunction / upgrade.

    Cheers
    jimbo
      My Computer


 

  Related Discussions
Our Sites
Site Links
About Us
Windows 10 Forums is an independent web site and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation. "Windows 10" and related materials are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

© Designer Media Ltd
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 05:01.
Find Us




Windows 10 Forums