Windows 10: Best image backup for Windows 10

This is the first time I heard someone say the Macrium WinPE approach is complicated. It's the simplest solution you can find. Even creating the bootable USB is so simple within the Macrium program itself. I too have Acronis 2014 Pro but I thought that was a complete waste of money when I started using the free Macrium. It creates my image in less than 3 mins. My data are separate and isolated on separate drive. The good thing about bootable USB is you can restore your PC even when your pc won't boot up.





But I guess it depends how we do our backups. Acronis is indeed very good with the incremental backup. But it is useless for me because my data is not on the same drive as thr OS.

 

I use Acronis TI 2014. I backup 3 drives.

C: is my 250GB boot SSD.
D: is some programs and data
E: is all data

I initially set it up to backup all 3 disks as a single image. I then realized things on D: and E: changed a lot less than C: so I split it into 3 separate backups. I backup C: more often than D: and E: now.

Having said all that, I don't like the Acronis interface at all though, neither the installed version or the bootable version. It's especially bad when trying to restore. It's sometimes difficult to figure out exactly what and how to restore an image. I've always managed to get it to work eventually but it should be very easy to do a restore, but it isn't.

I'm going to look into some of the other software mentioned here with an eye to useability, especially on the restore end.

 

I agree with Greg, it's nice to have native image capability. I need to play around with the older System Image on Win8 and Win10, then see what Recovery Drive and File History offer in the newest backup iterations from MS.

Control Panel -> File History -> System Image Backup (lower left corner)

Control Panel -> File History (turn on and advanced settings)

Control Panel -> Recovery -> Create a Recovery Drive.

Brink probably has tutorials on these over on EightForums. I haven't had the chance to use any of them since I upgraded to Win8. Now I'm playing with Win10! I might backup my system some day using these methods *Wink

Bill
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Hi there

I don't follow this -- your DATA really SHOULD NOT be on the same drive as the OS !!! I think many people on these boards say this "Ad Nauseam". So the "Uselessness" or otherwise of Acronis incremental backups seems that you haven't understood how to create these.

Creating a WINPE based backup needs some downloads and of course it really isn't of much use if you also have LINUX machines to backup or other file systems other than the base Windows FAT32 or NTFS.

What about taking an image of the OEM recovery partition with free macrium -- Acronis has no problems with ANY type of partition. What about backing up data from Ms's STORAGE SPACES system with the new file system ReFs.

Don't get me wrong. Macrium is fine for a lot of people and ANY backup is far far better than none - but IMO if you regard your USER data as even more valuable than your computers then spending around 45 USD on a good ROBUST product IMO is a No Brainer.

I usually do my OS backups from a bootable USB device - but if I'm taking a DATA backup either full or incremental there's no problem doing this at night from within Windows itself -- and if you are backing up say 8 TB of data you'll see the problem of using the Ms VSS system which is why I dscarded Macrium in the first place.

But again USE ANY SYSTEM that works for you -- ANY backup is better than NONE. Check also that the restore works too --many times you read of people backing up stuff OK but then when they try and restore it it fails.

Ideally you should have MORE THAN 1 BACKUP - I don't think Macrium (or at least the Free version) allows parallel backups to multiple devices.

As for Windows Native imaging -- well I wouldn't rely on it -- it's usually a dog and probably won't work if you need a "Bare metal restore". That said though ANY backup is BETTER THAN NONE.

Cheers
jimbo

 

8TB of data???? Is it pure data? Or are you including photos, MP3s and videos (media files) as data? All my media files are also on separate hard drives attached to NAS externally. My definition of data is anything you open up with office including PDFs. Or anything that is work or business related. Those are included in my RAID setup. My music and videos are on separate hard drive and photos on another drive. I don't backup my videos and MP3s. I don't really care losing them. As for my photos, I burn backups on BDs every year labelled with month and year so I can easily find any photos if I need to dig anything up.



Here's how I file my photos. At the end of each year I burn them on discs. Last year (2013) it took 2 bluray discs (45GB) to burn all my photos.













Different folks. Different strokes. As long as we do backups like you said. *Smile

 

I really like AOMEI Backupper. So nice and clean and easy to use. FREE is nice too.*Smile

 

Quite a couple of years ago I was using Acronis. At one point in time a newer version could not handle RAID,0 and partitions on a RAID0-set. Acronis detected two or three partitions, where as there were many more. The 'old/previous' version still detected all partitions. I contacted support and obviously they wanted to figure out the 'why'. Sent them all kinds of things, screenshots, systeminfo, etc.
Endless (chat) contacts, they even sent some tailormade builts that I should try, and they also sent me some other application of what they are selling. Acronis Disk Director or something.
All of that I tried - running from bootable CD-ROM.
It took days. One way or the other, in the end the Acronis software managed to damage a partition and all data was gone!

I then decided to leave Acronis and switched to Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite that costs the same, but has a lot more to offer in the area of Partitioning and Optimization, Data Wiping Features, Data Copy. Just do a side-by-side comparision...

Anyway, image files are created without any problems.

=

 

I performed a clean install of Windows 7 yesterday and restored a Macrium image over the top using WinPE in less than 45 minutes. WinPE is ridiculously easy to use and it takes minutes to create the bootable USB. That will be my image restoration procedure of choice in future, it really was child's play.

 

The time it takes to finish image restoration depends on the size of image. Mine takes between 5 & 10 mins to complete as I don't have data included on my image. Just the OS and installed programs.
I am also using Macrium bootable USB and one other useful application is when you created dual boot. It can be used to fix a boot problem when you deleted one of the OS and the boot manager was messed up. No need for EasyBCD. You can also use it to create boot select menu.

 

Up front I do not have Macrium, but just wonder...
Say you have created an image of Windows and (of course) stored that on a different partition.
On Macrium Reflect Disk Imaging and Backup - Help -> To restore disks or partitions it looks(!) as if you can
restore on a running system, i.e. you do not need to restore from a bootable (rescue) CD.

Is that correct?

Can imagine creating an image can be done with a running Windows 7 (because of VSS use), but
restoring... I don't know.

Thanks

BTW there is a handy link where different products can be compared
Comparision Provider - BackupReview.com
=

 

Hi there

While a great tutorial - What a palaver !! My idea of a restore is just plug in a bootable piece of media - boot it up and then simply restore your Disc / Partition / Data.

As I said before if you are using NON WINDOWS types of partitions then Free Macrium isn't of any use in either backing up or recovering. Even if you are using WINDOWS then if you've got data on things like Windows Storage spaces then Free macrium won't support those either. (Or at least currently).

I'd also want if I get a new machine to at least IMAGE the OEM recovery partition too -- I always wipe "purchased machines" to install proper retail / enterprise versions of the OS and remove the usually loads of bloat and trialware that comes with a new machine. - but if the machine needs to be taken back to the store again or sent back you need to restore it to the "Factory State".

But again ANY BACKUP is BETTER THAN NONE so use whatever "floats your boat". It will be streets ahead of NOT using any system.

Cheers
jimbo

 

Has anyone tested the Macrium Window PE disk yet? I couldn't get it to boot recently on https://www.tenforums.com/general-dis...ble-crash.html.

First an error implicated Secure Boot which I turned off in BIOS, then it wouldn't load past 2/3.

 

I did yesterday Greg after performing that clean install of Windows 7, I did the clean install then booted through WinPE and restored a previous Macrium image. I posted a reply in your original thread about the problem you had that links to a very similar problem I found elsewhere.

 

I did a few weeks back. I tested upgrading from windows 7 to windows 10, then restored 7 back with Macrium image using WinPe. Everything is fine. No issues.

 

Hi

I'm still suggesting EaseUS TODO backup.
As you can see if offers a choice of backup options but we're looking at a system back up here.

It doesn't get any easier then this...





Click on the system backup button.







Tell it where you want to save it.
Hit Proceed.

That's it, it will make the backup in the selected location, with every thing you need boot info etc.

Now to make a restore disk... Click the Tools Icon.





Pick the kind of boot repair disk you want to make, WindPE or Linux, (I have always used Linux myself).
Click Proceed.

I have used this to back up my Windows 8 install as well, it's never failed to restore my computer and I done it a number of times.

I've already backed up Windows 10 5 times and restored it 3 times.

Mike

PS. How do I get it to not repeat the inserted image again on the bottom?