can use usb flash drive to make system image backup?

Hi. I have Windows 10 Home running on Lenovo desktop. Can a 128 gb usb 3.0 flash drive be used to make a system image backup? Is a usb flash drive the same as a usb jump drive? Thanks.

Yes and yes.

Thumb/Flash/Jump drives are all the same. As long as the flash drive is as large or larger than the data on the HDD to be copied.

Your only issue will be file format....as 7/8/8.1 are NTFS with a MBR. Windows 10 on the other hand is NTFS with a GPT file format. I don't know for sure if that will work on flash drive.

I use Macrium Reflex to make images of my main C: drive which has 94GB of use. When Macrium makes an image it compress it into a file that is 56GB. The format of my USB flash drive is fat32 and it does not matter as you are just storing a file on it. Macrium has a procedure to make a bootable restore USB flash drive which is used to boot the system and runs Macrium from it. It then can read the image file and restore it.

Jim

I sometimes use paragon backup and restore 2014 free edition. It will also back up into its own format with optional compression and password protection. It is not very fast. Windows makes faster images that paragon.

Phone Man said:

I use Macrium Reflex to make images of my main C: drive which has 94GB of use. When Macrium makes an image it compress it into a file that is 56GB. The format of my USB flash drive is fat32 and it does not matter as you are just storing a file on it. Macrium has a procedure to make a bootable restore USB flash drive which is used to boot the system and runs Macrium from it. It then can read the image file and restore it.



Jim

Thanks Jim....good to know.

Railtech said:

Yes and yes.

Thanks. Happy Holidays.

Plankton said:

Thumb/Flash/Jump drives are all the same. As long as the flash drive is as large or larger than the data on the HDD to be copied.

Your only issue will be file format....as 7/8/8.1 are NTFS with a MBR. Windows 10 on the other hand is NTFS with a GPT file format. I don't know for sure if that will work on flash drive.

Hi. What is MBR? For Windows 10 System Image backup, do I have to format flash drive in NTFS? Anything I have to do with regards to GPT file format before making backup? Thanks. Happy Holidays.

Phone Man said:

I use Macrium Reflex to make images of my main C: drive which has 94GB of use. When Macrium makes an image it compress it into a file that is 56GB. The format of my USB flash drive is fat32 and it does not matter as you are just storing a file on it. Macrium has a procedure to make a bootable restore USB flash drive which is used to boot the system and runs Macrium from it. It then can read the image file and restore it.
Jim

Thanks. Happy Holidays.