What do you think of my backup strategy with Macrium Reflect

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  1. Posts : 245
    W10 Home Version 21H1 Build 19043.1055
       #11

    One thing I hadn't done (since corrected) is to put the dedicated Sandisk SSD monitoring software on, so it's possible I would have got some warning if I had.
    Lesson learned...
    I also put the Kingston app onto my sisters HP which I have set up multiboot for her same as mine, SSD boot, HDD clone one major FU behind. 1803 boot /1709 clone.
    Kingston (400) is showing 1% on wear after 500 hours use everything else still 100% (but no dedicated granular writes info, not a very good app tbh).
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  2. Posts : 56,804
    Multi-boot Windows 10/11 - RTM, RP, Beta, and Insider
       #12

    dictum said:
    I need to figure out how to do incremental backups just on the user partition - Documents, downloads and stuff. There is no reason to copy the entire 1TB drive bit-by-bit.
    A lot of what you are discussing in this new thread is in your other thread.

    Macrium Reflect image question - dedicated drive? - Windows 10 Forums
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  3. Posts : 518
    Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit 18363 Multiprocessor Free
    Thread Starter
       #13

    Well these are much different tactics. What I've done over the last 5 years or so I made clones. I never made any incremental backups nor created a rescue disk or anything bootable. The way most users appear to do it with Macrium.

    I was just wondering if anyone relies 100% on the clones as I do -- even with its flaws. Number one issue, you have to invest in a spare (and not all that cheap yet) SSD that's sitting doing and not doing anything other than being a clone. When you get to huge sizes like 1TB or 2TB, it's certainly expensive.

    Alternatively you can invest in a Macrium license that allows incremental backups.
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  4. Posts : 56,804
    Multi-boot Windows 10/11 - RTM, RP, Beta, and Insider
       #14

    dictum said:
    Well these are much different tactics. What I've done over the last 5 years or so I made clones. I never made any incremental backups nor created a rescue disk or anything bootable. The way most users appear to do it with Macrium.

    I was just wondering if anyone relies 100% on the clones as I do -- even with its flaws. Number one issue, you have to invest in a spare (and not all that cheap yet) SSD that's sitting doing and not doing anything other than being a clone. When you get to huge sizes like 1TB or 2TB, it's certainly expensive.

    Alternatively you can invest in a Macrium license that allows incremental backups.
    Exactly. That's what we were discussing in your other thread. How to implement a backup plan using Macrium images instead of cloning, which you mentioned there also. Making of the Rescue Thumb, how and where to store the images, how to do a restore. Sizes, methods.
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  5. Posts : 245
    W10 Home Version 21H1 Build 19043.1055
       #15

    dictum said:
    Well these are much different tactics. What I've done over the last 5 years or so I made clones. I never made any incremental backups nor created a rescue disk or anything bootable. The way most users appear to do it with Macrium.

    I was just wondering if anyone relies 100% on the clones as I do -- even with its flaws. Number one issue, you have to invest in a spare (and not all that cheap yet) SSD that's sitting doing and not doing anything other than being a clone. When you get to huge sizes like 1TB or 2TB, it's certainly expensive.

    Alternatively you can invest in a Macrium license that allows incremental backups.

    The clones don't have to be SSD's, HDD is fine, especially if you have fast boot enabled (which is a quasi hibernate boot). You could even try SSHD although I've read that it doesn't really make much difference to the speed for a boot drive.

    In the case of an SSD failure you just clone back onto the new drive (which I'm just about to do) or restore from a macrium backup to a working boot SSD if you must have a very recent working copy.

    I keep W10 as thin client vanilla as possible, hardly any installed third party apps, portable apps on USB flash drives where possible, cloud apps / file copies et al.
    Even from a clean OS install via MCT onto a brand new drive I could be back up and running inside 30 minutes with everything pretty much as was prior to the fail/corruption. (I've done it once as an experiment and timed it just to see...).
    On an i7 machine with NVMe SSD and USB 3.1 gen 2 ports / USB SSD MCT I could probably get that down to about ten minutes.

    I still think Macrium backups and restores are a good idea, but they aren't essential if you are organised in a coherent way. It's a horses for courses scenario. If a bit of a traditionalist with loads of C drive installed third party apps. et al then you'd be a bit stuffed without the Macrium backup/restore option.
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  6. Posts : 518
    Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit 18363 Multiprocessor Free
    Thread Starter
       #16

    I ran Macrium Reflect on my other machine for years, which is a Windows 7 machine and for the longest time, it came with that hybrid SSD/HDD drive which is actually noticeably faster to boot than HDD 5400 RPM drive. I installed a 5400 HDD in it as a clone and that's what it had for a while until I replaced the Hybrid drive with a Samsung 850 1TB which made it faster but the difference is less impressive than when going from a pure HDD especially 5400 rpm and not 7200 rpm one to any SSD.

    A 5400 HDD is just intolerably slow. Drive speed I think is ultimately more important than CPU and maybe even RAM. I get that anyone of these can be a bottleneck.

    Before that, for years, I used Macrium and cloned a pair of 300GB Seagate data-center grade 15.5K RPM drives that were the fastest HDD you could get. And the machine still took 5 minutes to boot up. This SSD version boots in 29 seconds. I think I have a lot of MSI junk on that that is slowing it down.
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  7. Posts : 245
    W10 Home Version 21H1 Build 19043.1055
       #17

    My WD 1TB HDD (7200rpm I think...) boot is about 30 seconds to a useable desktop with fastboot enabled, my SSD was about 10 (fastboot made no difference there really).
    But as I said I run an uber lean install, I learned the hard way that filling Windows machines up with crap is a great way to get a slow machine.

    Sounds like a clean install might be in order for you...

    Edit: Another advantage of metered connection is it stops all that network traffic at boot, so there isn't the bun fight of everything trying to connect to the internet at the same time, makes a significant difference, even on a fast machine.
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  8. Posts : 518
    Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit 18363 Multiprocessor Free
    Thread Starter
       #18

    No way

    It's an MSI gaming laptop, MSI GT80 SLI and it has some vendor specific stuff. I did notice the other day, when I did a clean install of Windows in my attempt to recover the lost EFI partition, it seemed to boot faster.

    It has utils like the one that controls the keyboard LED lights and some other proprietor stuff.So it's not a normal plain-Jane Windows 10 install.

    The machine did come with 2 SSDs in a RAID for better performance and I undid the RAID, instead booting off a single SSD and using the other one as a clone. I sacrificed speed for reliability. If any one of the SSDs fails, the entire cluster fails. The RAID is so small that there is no redundancy built in, some RAID have a redundancy where you can afford to lose one disk.
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  9. Posts : 518
    Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64-bit 18363 Multiprocessor Free
    Thread Starter
       #19

    Another advantage of metered connection is it stops all that network traffic at boot, so there isn't the bun fight of everything trying to connect to the internet at the same time, makes a significant difference, even on a fast machine.
    Interesting.

    I should try that and see if it cuts down my boot up time.


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  10. Posts : 245
    W10 Home Version 21H1 Build 19043.1055
       #20

    How many processes/apps in start up, that can make a big difference. When I clean up other peoples machines that's the first thing I do, disable 70%+ of their start up rubbish.
    My box has 7 in total.
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