which is better , regular schedule backups or backup with system image

thanks Zbook

@ignatz more info - i just bought a Dell 5280 and it took me a long time to reinstall stuff like chrome and firefox with all same settings and bookmarks and stuff like malware bytes , getgreenshot.org , screencast-o-matic and customise all their settings ETC ETC - thats the stuff i want to clone - its not my docs and pics - those i backup onto a usb and i have minimal - only using 60 gigs out of 320gigs

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Is it a "flash drive" the size of a finger?

yes , i have 2 16 gig ones and if need be i will buy a 128 gig if Macrium needs that much space

thanks

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FYI on my e6330 i just did a windows 8.1 regular backup and it fitted on my 16 gig usb

Imaging and cloning typically involve EVERYTHING on the partition in question.....rather than only this stuff or only that stuff.

You didn't give a full explanation of what you had or wanted to do in your first posts, so we are now off in the weeds in a different direction because you really want to transfer some stuff from old machine 1 to new machine 2, rather than back up as normally understood.

It's doable, but I'd guess most here would tell you to bite the bullet and do fresh installs of all of your programs onto the new laptop.....even though that is time consuming.

I'm not qualified to help you do what you want to do.

You never said how much occupied space you have on the old machine, so it's unknown how much space you need on the USB drive.

USB flash drives will work for Macrium, but they are an inferior choice...slow, flimsy, prone to failure.

nope ive done everything and my new dell is now identical to my old dell - i was looking to clone my new dell with W10 for safekeeping for the future for when it dies or the ssd dies and THEN i have my cloned stuff, ill look into Macrium later

thank you all so much

OK;

Don't clone.

Image.

It's a quick job with Macrium; maybe 20 minutes to an hour, depending.

7 or 8 mouse clicks.

The resulting file may or may not fit where you want to save it.

Don't clone. Image.

to save space ?

icco said:

Don't clone. Image.

to save space ?

No.

They are two different procedures. I say DIFFERENT.

Imaging creates a big file that must be formally "restored" to make a new drive bootable. Make and keep as many as you want, as long as you have storage space. One a month might be typical. The April image would be somewhat different from the March image. Typically used for disaster recovery....after a drive failure or a bad Windows or software jam. Total downtime if drive fails perhaps an hour. Success rate probably 99 percent.

Cloning does NOT create a big file. It's just a real-time transfer of everything on drive 1 to drive 2. If it works, drive 2 is immediately bootable. Put drive 2 in the closet and wait for drive 1 to fail. No "restore" process. Somewhat more prone to failure than imaging. Usually used when moving from a good drive 1 to a newer larger faster drive 2 in the same machine. Not a "backup" in the normal disaster recovery sense. The drive is wasted if it just sits in the closet.

ok got it , thanks everyone !!!!!!!!