I do daily imaging. I use a USB3 docking station similar to this one.
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Exter...rive+enclosure
Takes only a few minutes with a standard SATA3 (2.5 or 3.5) drive in the dock.
Simply power on, do backup imaging, gracefully eject, and power down.
Getting back to the OP's initial question, I believe I read somewhere that the latest Ransom ware will search and encrypt files on all drives that are attached to a given system when it infects a system. I really would not want any recovery/backup drives attached. I always turn off my backup drives when not in use.
Reading more and more it has me thinking do I want to save everything or just specific files. I see where some software allows you to view and restore specific files rather than everything, but at the same time rather than reloading Win 10 from disc, and all the time consuming updates a complete restore from a backup sure would save time.
Some things I have ruled out are :
I don't want a subscription based service.
I don't want to save to the cloud.
Things I am thinking about are:
Do I really need to backup each day ?
I did like the poste by Steve C. with the option to back up "if missed then run at next start up"
Steve what is that option event under Frequency ?
The Event option takes you to the screen below - the option lets you run the selected schedule at logon or when the computer starts. Note Reflect Free lets you mount an image as a virtual drive from where you can copy any folder or file. This is very useful - e.g. updating my Canon printer driver lost all my personal paper settings without warning so I recovered my printer configuration file from the Reflect image. I run an automated schedule for monthly Reflect full backups and weekly differential backups. I also use File History to backup my user files every 3 hours. I'm a home user so you might want a higher backup frequency if you have business critical files.
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It really depends how much data you generate and what type.
If it is critical word docs, photos etc, then maybe.
If it is emails, maybe not as most are in the cloud anyway assuming you do not auto delete them if they are deleted on device.
If it is downloaded stuff, probably not as you can just download again.
A pragmatic solution is to backup weekly automatically, but manually backup critical data more often.
Basically ever user needs to devise a backup strategy that fits their usage.
Me. I backup OS drive monthly, and just copy critical files to cloud (word docs etc). I rarely backup downloaded stuff eg installers.
For critical files, I recommend onedrive or google drive etc.
Got to thank everybody for all the excellent responses.
I've just finished reading posts of Acronis verses Macrom Reflect, and Reflect seems the way to go for me.
Also going to purchase an external WD drive as Swarfega linked to.
Steve C are you using the Reflect free version ?
I'm going to mark this as solved.
Thanks everybody !
Addi8tional thoughts.:
I have downloaded the Macrum Reflect.
While comparing the WD desktop hard drives I see that they are password protected, and pre-loaded with the Acronis software.
I imagine people are reformatting the drive to get rid of the Acronis software, but that must remove the password unless the Reflect has the option to use a password ?
Last question if you don't leave your external backup hard drive connected are your powering it down ? I'm not sure these go into a type of sleep mode when not in use.
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