Windows 10: How I can you backup the entire c drive (windows 10) to an external drive?

How I can you backup the entire c drive (windows 10) to an external drive?

:)

 

re Windows 10 c:\ drive backup to external drive question

Windows System Backups

There are a number of things that cause a computer to become unusable so it’s a very good idea to make full system backups. Some of the things that can cause this to happen are:

• Your hard drive can fail.
• Your system becomes infected by a virus.
• You accidently install a faulty program.
• Your computer gets powered off without going through a normal shutdown.

There are numerous others, but you get the idea.

Depending on how much of your C: drive is being used and what kind of device your C: drive resides on, the time this takes can vary greatly. To give you an idea, here are some actual timings:

• 50 GB SSD desktop to USB 3 hard drive took 8 minutes.
• 88 GB laptop (5400 rpm) to USB 3 hard drive took 21 min., 11 seconds.
• 205 GB desktop (7200 rpm) to USB 3 took 77 minutes.

As you can see, there’s a wide degree of variation depending on what kind of C: drive you have and how many GB of data you’re backing up.

So what do you need to have for accomplishing this? First you need a good backup/restore program. There are many free ones, but the two recommended here are:

• Macrium Reflect (download from http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx)
• Easeus Todo Backup (download from http://www.easeus.com/download/tbf-download.html).

Both of the above are free for non-commercial use and can be easily downloaded and installed. They both can create a recovery CD or flash drive you can boot from to restore your C: drive in case your computer becomes inoperative. Both of these programs
can be set up to do everything automatically at a time when you’re not using the computer.

The other thing you need is an external hard drive to put the backups on. You can buy 1 TB USB 3 external drives for around $50 to $60. These should be fine for most people. If you have more than 250 GB of used space on your C: drive, you should
consider a larger capacity drive, but the great majority of people can get by with the 1 TB models.

Doing this can save you a lot of grief and expense when the inevitable problems occur.

 

Hard Drive / External Drive + Backups Configuration?

Drive configuration is really a personal choice. I prefer RAID-0 for OS & Games, another drive for media, another drive for personal stuff (Docs, pr0n, etc.) and an external for backup.

IMO, Windows 7 has a great backup utility.

 

Hard Drive / External Drive + Backups Configuration?

I run 2 500GB drives in RAID-0. (Seagate 7200.12 drives)

This is very good advice. I have lost my array once. *Mad I backup weekly to an external, and also copy any important files (work data, game saves, pics, etc.) to my 500GB "personal" drive. So basically, I have an image of my Array saved to the external, and a copy of "My Documents" backed up to the internal 500GB.

Moral of the story: Definately backup often, whether running a RAID array or not. *Toast :toast: