Windows 10: Windows 10 Backup Strategy Solution Suggestions

I upload the most important files on my D drive to OneDrive for backups. I also backup the entire D drive on another external hard drive. I pay for the 1TB Office 365 solution because of OneDrive backup and the fact that the real free office alternatives are terrible.

 

I do not have that many requirements when backing up my computer. But I always using free AOMEI Backupper because it basically meets all my needs, full/incremental/differential backup to external drive. It also supports backing up to NAS and network, which is useless for me. Anyway, it is worth trying.

 

I also have Office 365, the Home version is great as everyone gets Office and 1TB of storage on OneDrive - so a total of 5TB. For many years I attempted to use OpenOffice and it just doesn't feel right.

 

I have just gone through complete re-installs of Windows 7 on my machine and Windows 10 on my wife's machine. Have been thinking about what to do this time to backup our systems.

I had an image of my Windows 7 system drive, but it had been made using the built in Windows backup. When time came to use it, it would not work. The data drive was not affected, so no trouble there. I also had a second Win10 drive that I had abandoned in favor of my old Win7.

The Windows 10 failure was caused by the flawed W10 update issued on Jan 3rd. I tried for 3 days to fix that, but eventually did a clean install on a new SSD. Luckily the personal and data folders on the old drive were still accessible even although it would not boot.(I put it in a USB enclosure).

After these experiences, I came to conclusion that it makes little sense to clone a windows system disk. It may already have various errors that build up after numerous updates. We don't use many stand alone programs these days and the few we have can easily be reinstalled.

So my plan is:
- Have MS isos available for Win 7 and Win 10 for future clean installs.
- Make recovery thumb drives for each OS (They may get system going without a complete re-install)
- Keep all personal files like documents, photos, desktop on cloud storage (Dropbox/Gdrive in our case)
- Copy Data disks and all personal files directly to external USB harddrive a couple of times a year as secondary backup.

I have used Macrium and other backup programs. They work OK, but generally the disks just lie around and I am lax about maintaining the backups. The only times I have really needed them, they would no longer work *Sad My fault likely, but that's my experience.

My feeling is to keep things simple and don't rely on a program that would only be used once in a blue moon *Smile

 

Free feels more right to me than C$169 one time for Home & Student or $109/yr for Home *Smile

365 Includes a lot of stuff we don't need. OpenOffice does too, but it is free and totally compatible. My wife has use OO for years. I kept using Office 97 until recently, but now switched to OO. It works just fine - just need to get used to menu items sometimes being in different places. We only use word processor and spreadsheets and save in MS Office format so others can open them.

Up until recently, I used Windows Live Mail. Not being supported any more. No MS alternative on Win 7 and the mail on on Win 10 is atrocious. Installed Thunderbird. Really happy with current version. It looks like WLM and works perfectly on win 7 and 10.

 

"...lax about maintaining the backups..." please do not be lax about routinely making backups onto external media. The 'Net boards have many threads from the "have no backups" or "only have old backups" from poster figuratively, and rightly so!, beside themselves.

 

Preach all you want, but you will have a hard time convincing me that any backup program would be better than the KISS method I outlined above *Wink No need for backups!

 

You must use a bare untweaked Windows without any apps installed. I only install Windows and my core apps ONCE.
Tweaking Windows and the apps is usually a couple hour process.
Then takes 5 minutes to make a Macrium image. And five minutes to restore.
Much more simple than your method. Not preaching you can't do it your way. Whatever works for you.

 

agent99, you might want to explore AOMEI Backupper. It's interactive face is a bit friendlier and easier to use than most other backup / restore / cloning utilities. Again, nobody is preaching to you or at you -- the choice is always yours *Smile

 

agent99's plan:
- Have MS isos available for Win 7 and Win 10 for future clean installs.
- Make recovery thumb drives for each OS (They may get system going without a complete re-install)
- Keep all personal files like documents, photos, desktop on cloud storage (Dropbox/Gdrive in our case)
- Copy Data disks and all personal files directly to external USB harddrive a couple of times a year as secondary backup.

This plan should work just fine -- I would recommend using the external usb HD at least once weekly.
You having ISOs handy is a great idea! I wish I had thought of that much earlier, years ago!

 

Then you must have a version of Windows plus apps that NEVER go wrong. If so you are very fortunate, and really have no need for a backup program *Wink

On my wife's Win10 install, only apps that are there are Thunderbird, Dropbox, Chrome and Open Office. If we were prepared to put up with the MS supplied apps, only Open Office would be required and not even that if you spring for 365. I am sure that that is type of installation that MS, Google and Apple envisage. Tweaking? Not really needed for basic user that uses a few apps plus mostly on-line sites.

Despite the above, I will do a one time clone of existing Win10 SSD to the old 7200rpm drive. Swap drives to make sure it works, then store drive until next time an update kills the installation *Sad At least we will get running again and all files will be available from cloud and email on imap.

 

I did try it. At first could not get USB boot to work. Didn't realize how long it takes before anything appears on screen. Maybe due to USB 2.0? In any event it all worked, but have no way of testing it without some spare drives. I have one and will have another when I get home. Those will be used to clone existing working SSDS. Clones are easier to test - just swap drives.

I do have a question about cloning. I have 256G SSDS on both Win7 and Win10 computers. Spare HDs are bigger - 300 or 350G, I think. I can clone to those OK. But if the clone ends up being bigger, perhaps a problem re-cloning to SSD if system fails (again!). I read that some will expand to full drive size, but surely that will cause a problem when trying to reclone to the smaller SSD?
So do AOMEI and/or Macrium maintain exact drive size so there will be no problem re-cloning?

 

I don't know the answers to your excellent cloning questions -- I'll be listening in and learning alongside you from the wisdom and experiences of others.

 

In Macrium, you can resize partitions on the fly, upwards or downwards. See Step 4 here: https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/di...Cloning+a+disk

Someone else will have to answer the AOMEI half of your question.

Of course, the data itself has to fit regardless.

 

Ok, so if we are creating a clone of existing 256GB ssd onto a 350GB hard drive, we can just do that without any size changes and leave 94GB of unallocated space? Then when we want to recover, the clone on the hard drive can be cloned back to the SSD? Just want to be sure there are no tricks in getting sizes correct.