Windows 10: Painless Windows 10 Backup Solution?

Okay. Now that's an awesome response!

It would appear that this Macrium Reflect Free pretty much covers it all. I'm going to download/install it as it seems to cover what I need. I'm glad to know that I can restore everything back to what it was at backup time or just a single file, and that I can either boot a recovery disk or install OS and Macrium Reflect Free, run it and restore stuff. Nice.

Thank you very much for taking the time to write such an extensive and clear answer.

Cheers!

 

No problem. You must also consider the location of your backup files, though.

My laptop and desktop computers both have SSDs for the main operating drive and second HDDs permanently installed for data storage. The secondary HDDs have two partitons - one for data and the backup image file, and a second partition that is bootable which contains the standard Windows 10 installation files but the boot.wim file is replaced with one that contains Kyhi's Recovery Tools - which also has Macrium Reflect free available. If something messes up the Windows 10 on my SSD - mostly likely me playing around with it - I can select the boot option from UEFI to boot from the HDD in the computer instead of the SSD. I have the ability to re-install Windows clean onto the SSD, or restore the backup image. All without any external device required.

I also have an external USB hard drive set up the same way. And for my final disaster fall back I have an image stored on a RAID 0 Network Attached Storage drive unit with two hard drives which mirror each other. The only thing I don't have, which you need for data you absolutely must have survive almost anything, is off site storage. If my house burns to the ground, then I have lost it all.

 

Too late. I already purchased. Guess like minds... Thanks.

 

I'm curious, @CmmTch.... did you pay for Windows 10 because of the unreliability of the free version?

 

No I didn't pay for, I use the free version, but I don't use it to run a business that can't afford any downtime.

My comment didn't indicate "unreliability" of a free version, it's more of a "you get what you pay for"

I see it frequently in my line of work, people buy a residential service for business use strictly because they don't want to pay for business level service. Their service goes down, and since they aren't paying for business level QOS, they're paying for the less expensive residential rate and the restoral time for residential is not on par with a business QOS.

 

Now that you brought it up...

Maybe you can help me decide on an approach?

My system storage looks like this:

Main (C: - 150g) and Secondary (D: 350g) are partitions on a SSD (Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500gb uses Samsung Magician)

Storage (E*Smile is a 250g HD

Backups (F*Smile is a 1tb HD

I wanted the SSD to allow me super fast bootups. It has been awesome. I made the partition size just 150g because I figured it should be just for the Windows 10 OS (for the most part). The rest of the SSD holds copies of all my downloaded software and other files that really is long-term storage with limited write/read activity. I decided this because of something I read a few years ago that constant write/deletion on SSDs eventually renders the drive useless. Don't know it that really applies today or with my particular SSD, but that's the thinking behind my decision.

The E: drive sees a lot of activity, and I tend to INSTALL applications on this drive rather than C: for the reasons listed above. So as long as an application gives me a choice where to install (some go right to C: which I don't like), I choose E:.

And F: is a drive I installed to hold IMAGES for backups. I figured 1tb should be enough space to make images of C, D and E. I wanted an installed drive for this for quick restores. I also have USB2 and USB3 external storages of 500g drives.


So question:

1. Any thoughts on what I've done above?

2. Should I install Macrium on my C: (SSD) or on my E: like I do other apps (or does it matter)?

Thanks.

 

If it were my computer (and the way I run my computers), I would move the D: drive partition to the entire 250 GB HDD. Then I would extend the C: drive partition to fill the entire SSD and just install all the normally used programs to it. The life of the SSD is based upon erase and write cycles, not read only cycles. Most files associated with programs are only read when the program loads and not written over unless they are upgraded. The purpose of the SSD is to improve speed. Installing every program that you can onto a mechanical HDD largely negates that whole purpose.

And if you look at the actual number of erase and write cycles that is required to "wear out" an SSD - and distrubite those erase and write cycles over every bit storage location on the drive, you will discover that the affect of write cycles on an SSD is grossly exaggerated:
Better calculator:
SsdReady: Measure solid-state drive life | SSD life time and measurement tool

 

Ahh. Makes a lot of sense.

I like that logic.

Now to figure out the best way to migrate stuff from D: to E: since last time I did something like this there were some disconnects from applications expecting to find files on from the moved drive. Guess it will just be a slow process.

Thanks again. I've learned a lot!