Imaging to an ISO?

PiKo:

My screenshot earlier showed the full contents of C:, including 57 GB of data.

Not sure I understand your other point. I obviously don't backup C: to C: !

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi there

@Terrypin

It really doesn't matter what format your backup is - the only important thing you need to be 100% sure is that can it RESTORE safely and also from a Stand alone bootable device such as a USB stick. This is important in case you swap HDD's, one gets broken or your computer gets riddled with un removeable malware and you don't want to go through the whole kybosh of re-installing Windows plus all your programs.

Macrium reflect can create a backup for you which if you want can also be bootable --that way you can have say the image plus bootable program on something like a 64GB USB stick.

Your Windows installation shouldn't be much over 50GB - and that's a lot - even if you have things like OFFICE, Photoshop, media servers etc installed. Keep DATA separate.

I'd also AVOID using optical media these days -- it's slow and can be unreliable.

Backup programs don't need any extra virus scanning stuff in them - they should be fast and do the job properly. Ensure your backup is CLEAN of course otherwise it's a total waste of time.

Macrium Free is very simple to use -- unless you really have to (and I've never found a reason to yet for WINDOWS ) take IMAGE option rather than CLONE (perhaps people can suggest why CLONE is useful for Windows systems -- I'm excluding Non Windows OS'es as partition and file systems are different and Clone is required when moving the OS --Linux for example) .

Imaging will require usually around 40-60% of the size of your windows installation generally.

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks Jimbo, very helpful. And in particular I do indeed see the advantage of excluding data files from C. It's currently making my backup planning a tad complex!

There is a counter-argument, a recommendation in another forum that influenced me strongly when specifying the configuration of my new PC. Namely that keeping regularly used files on my very fast SSD would have significant performance advantages. One of my main applications is video editing, and performance (especially when rendering a project) is an important factor.

But ... I'm by no means settled in my view.

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Re your emphasis on a 'clean' image, I buy that 100% - but how do you confidently and safely test that? And I mean without physicall opening up the PC and replacing drives, which is definitely outside my technical comfort zone.

Terry, UK

Editing Video and such would explain , at least partially why your C:\ Drive is large vs Others here if you have those files on C:\ too along with the Editing software. ( For me it's my CAD Package) It may make for larger Backups but , that's not really a concern with a 4TB Data Drive.

I do see 14.1 GB in your recycle bin though , something you could perhaps empty before doing an Image.



KB

Thanks for the reminder about the Recycle Bin.

I only have the regularly used files on C. For video they are essentially 'project files', relatively small but numerous, with links to the actual content (photos, video clips, music files, etc - the heavy stuff) whuch are on D.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Terrypin said:

Thanks for the reminder about the Recycle Bin.

I only have the regularly used files on C. For video they are essentially 'project files', relatively small but numerous, with links to the actual content (photos, video clips, music files, etc - the heavy stuff) whuch are on D.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

If you haven't done so you can also move the location of your "Libraries" to the Data Drive , (allowing windows to "move" the existing files), this will place the Pics , Music, Docs etc on D: (Data Drive) too .

Hi there

a free program called TREESIZE FREE is a good program to analyse what's on your drives.
https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/

as for SSD's - fine for OS + programs -- but there's no point in storing a load of data files on these. For video editing most of the work is CPU intensive rather than data access related so for improvement it's a good idea to have temporary / work areas / scratch files to use the SSD - photoshop for example when you have a large number of layers for an A2 size professional print. These files are temporary and aren't saved at the end of the session.

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks Jimbo. Many of the data files I keep on the SSD, together with all system and program files, are 'project' files used by my video editor. They consist mainly of links to files used in that video. So when previewing the video (short sections, very frequently) and, of course, for rendering a DVD or exporting a video, fast access is important.

So I think this is a somewhat equivalent situation to the one you described with PhotoShop.

Terry, UK

Thanks Stephanie. I use the excellent ImgBurn for burning DVDs, but hadn't considered it for making system images. Have you done so, and successfully restored one? Anyone?

Would you just select C: as the 'folder' from which to make the image?

Terry, UK