About Differential & Incremental images

   Note

Notice please:

I asked mods to move these almost 30 posts about Macrium from TF Video thread here to keep that thread a bit less cluttered, more focused on videos.

Wynona said:

Great, Kari! So far, I haven't succeeded in creating WinPE through Macrium. So it looks like I need a tutorial.

You are getting to be an absolute professional at this!

Thanks Wynona!

Quick tut for you my dear lady! Only for you, I've hidden this post from anyone else

Select Create Rescue Media from Other Tasks menu:

Accept all defaults, in final dialog select CD / ISO / USB, click Finish:

That's it.

And even easier alternative, select Add Recovery Boot Menu Option from Other Tasks:

Select Windows PE 10.0, click OK:

When done, you have Macrium Rescue in Windows 10 boot menu:

When selected it creates Macrium Rescue WinPE on a RAM disk, boots to it and you can either create or restore an image.

Kari

Nice Kari. Still doesn't make sense to me.

simrick said:

Nice Kari. Still doesn't make sense to me.

It's really logical and simple. A differential image saves all changes since your last full backup. Let's say you clean install Windows, make an image before any software is installed, that's your parent image, the full backup.

Install Office and CyberLink stuff, create a differential image. Image only contains Office and CyberLink plus files changed in WIndows system folders because of them, in other words only the changes made after last backup.

Install Opera, Firefox and Chrome, create another differential image. Because differential image alwas saves all chages after the last full backup, it will now ignore the fact that Office and CyberLink stuff have already been backed up and creates an image containing Office, CyberLink stuff, Opera, Firefox and Chrome.

It had been cleverer to create now an incremental image, because an incremental image only stores changes since whatever the last backup was (full, differential, incremental). In this case it had seen the full backup and thought OK, that WIndows stuff is already backed up, then moved on and seen the first differential backup being pleased to see that Office and CyberLink stuff have been backed up already, too, so it only needs to work relatively little and backup Opera, Firefox and Chrome.

simrick said:

Nice Kari. Still doesn't make sense to me.

A differential, put simply, is a device that allows one input to drive two outputs at differing speeds. . .

Oh, we're talking software backup, not cars!?

Kari said:

It's really logical and simple. A differential image saves all changes since your last full backup. Let's say you clean install Windows, make an image before any software is installed, that's your parent image, the full backup.

Install Office and CyberLink stuff, create a differential image. Image only contains Office and CyberLink plus files changed in WIndows system folders because of them, in other words only the changes made after last backup.

Install Opera, Firefox and Chrome, create another differential image. Because differential image alwas saves all chages after the last full backup, it will now ignore the fact that Office and CyberLink stuff have already been backed up and creates an image containing Office, CyberLink stuff, Opera, Firefox and Chrome.

If my last full backup was my parent (clean install), then the second differential should be all changes since that point. So it would include everything in differential #1, plus everything after that.

Kari said:

It had been cleverer to create now an incremental image, because an incremental image only stores changes since whatever the last backup was (full, differential, incremental). In this case it had seen the full backup and thought OK, that WIndows stuff is already backed up, then moved on and seen the first differential backup being pleased to see that Office and CyberLink stuff have been backed up already, too, so it only needs to work relatively little and backup Opera, Firefox and Chrome.

And if one of the incremental images fails or gets corrupted, your restore is in the bin....

Yeah, no thanks, I'll make full backups.

simrick said:

If my last full backup was my parent (clean install), then the second differential should be all changes since that point. So it would include everything in differential #1, plus everything after that.

Checking if I learned anything, Simrick; I think after the first differential, if you did another differential, that would be Differential #2 and would be used along with the original Full backup? Differential #1 would be discarded?

simrick said:

An if one of the incremental images fails or gets corrupted, your restore is in the bin....

Yeah, no thanks, I'll make full backups.

I haven't gotten far enough to learn corrupted . . .

Note that I edited my first paragraph.

simrick said:

Yeah, no thanks, I'll make full backups.

I've used Macrium since the month Windows 7 was launced, Octobr 2009. I have never had a corrupt image. Anyway, using differential and incremental images "spreads" the risk; even if one of these child backups would go missing or get corrupted, you always have the parent full backup and maybe some later child ones.

Wynona said:

Checking if I learned anything, Simrick; I think after the first differential, if you did another differential, that would be Differential #2 and would be used along with the original Full backup? Differential #1 would be discarded?

Exactly. Differential image is egoistic, don't care about any other backups than the last full one. Everything since last full backup will be ignored and all changes saved to a new differential. Incremental is more social, it accets anything, only saving the changes since the last backup, be it full, differential or incremental.

When restoring from a differential image you alway need just two images: the last differential and last full. Restoring from incremental image you need full backup, last differential if one exists, and all incremental backups since that.

OK, I have a couple of questions, please, Kari.

1. Will the WinPE flash drive I just made work with both the Windows Insider Builds and the Anniversary Build we'll have in a few days? Or will it just work with Build 10586 (which I was on when I made it)?

2. I'm on a dual boot system and once I clean install the Anniversary Build, I want to make a full backup; however, all of the partitions are checked. How am I supposed to know which is which? Mainly of the recovery partitions; I'm guessing I will want them too.

Wynona said:

1. Will the WinPE flash drive I just made work with both the Windows Insider Builds and the Anniversary Build we'll have in a few days? Or will it just work with Build 10586 (which I was on when I made it)?

WinPE does not care what operating systems you have installed on your PC. It is its own entity, booting directly to its own mini-OS, having no connection to the operating systems on that machine. It can access the physical side, the devices to some extent but for WinPE and Macrium rescue media it could not be more irrelevant what it finds as long as it can read the disks.

Wynona said:

2. I'm on a dual boot system and once I clean install the Anniversary Build, I want to make a full backup; however, all of the partitions are checked. How am I supposed to know which is which? Mainly of the recovery partitions; I'm guessing I will want them too.

Rule of thumb, assuming your disks are set as Windows installation them normally sets: on UEFI / GPT systems you need to include four first partitions of first disk ( UEFI system partitions (3) and C: drive) to get Windows backed up so that the image when restored is bootable.

On BIOS / MBR systems that's two partitions, system reserved and C: drive.

You can let Macrium automatically select those partitions for you, excluding all other disks and partitions:

Kari said:

WinPE does not care what operating systems you have installed on your PC. It is its own entity, booting directly to its own mini-OS, having no connection to the operating systems on that machine. It can access the physical side, the devices to some extent but for WinPE and Macrium rescue media it could not be more irrelevant what it finds as long as it can read the disks.

Rule of thumb, assuming your disks are set as Windows installation them normally sets: on UEFI / GPT systems you need to include four first partitions of first disk ( UEFI system partitions (3) and C: drive) to get Windows backed up so that the image when restored is bootable.

On BIOS / MBR systems that's two partitions, system reserved and C: drive.

You can let Macrium automatically select those partitions for you, excluding all other disks and partitions:

Thank you, Kari. I had to stop and fix supper for Johnny, so I hope you're getting some well-deserved sleep by now.

In the morning is time enough to answer this one last question . . .

I'm guessing that whichever partition I'm in, that's what Macrium will back up when I let it choose? IOW, if I'm in the Insider Build partition, that's what'll get backed up and vice versa for the Anniversary Edition?