Windows 10: Windows 10 Backup Strategy Solution Suggestions

Hi folks
Use whatever backup system you prefer --I suspect the majority of this board tend to use Macrium - but the fact people are even having a discussion about it is a vast improvement -- people now are taking backups.

For my recovery system - I have an SSD which can connect to a computer via SATA-->USB2 or USB3 connector. USB2 works well enough but USB3 is better. On this I have a Linux CENTOS system where I have also installed VMWARE and Windows 10 as a Virtual machine. Response time - especially on USB3 is 100% fine - probably faster than running NATIVE WINDOWS if the native windows OS is on a standard HDD. !!!!

On the Windows machine I have basic Windows, Internet and Office 2016 (I use that on some sites as well as I want to use a different Language in Office sometimes -- I'm not for example when in Belgium going to send emails in French /Flemish(Dutch). !!!

The Windows VM has Macrium etc and by adding any physical Windows HDD's as physical disks to the VM before booting up it will have access to any physical HDD needed. It also has a Partition manager which can be useful too. The Linux machine also has a partition manager installed (GPARTED) so double insurance if I need to mess around with HDD partitioning.

Note though when booting the VM on a different machine to the one you created the VM on ensure to say I MOVED it rather than I COPIED it or you could run into Windows activation problems !!!!. In Virtual Machine parlance you say "Power on " rather than boot --it's the same thing though. !!

On the Linux OS if I need to recover / backup data I use GRSYNC which is a really good DATA backup program - for example it will copy files which have changed, files that don't exist on the destination HDD and a load of other stuff. It also has SAMBA for networking and ntfs-3g which means it can read / write to Windows NTFS files.

I also have a copy of my last Windows Macrium backup on the SSD - the Windows VM can restore this to the appropriate machine.

Might be a bit complex to arrange this but it's great to have a really useful working totally PORTABLE version of Windows (works for any version of Windows) plus a Linux system -- it's done this way so unless you want to the local HDD's on the main machine are NOT TOUCHED in any way.

Note for normal backups etc I use more standard methods -- Macrium nightly on Windows machines - then Grsync to load images from Windows machines to NAS server. These are then later copied to external HDD's and then kept off line - so there's a copy of the system on the windows client and 2 copies - one on NAS and another on external HDD. Data is copied regularly too -- once in a while I take a new complete copy but changes are all that's usually required - and things like multi-media (music etc) don't change much - at least on my system.

In fact this post was done from my Windows 10 VM running from the Linux system described in the post (booted up from an external SSD and connected to a desktop computer via USB 3 port) . No problems with response time and even getting on ookla speed test around 850 Mb/s upload !!.


Cheers
jimbo

 

Hi there

Problem with your strategy is

On a re-install apart from having to dig out install media for all your programs you'll need as well for these possible licences - serial numbers etc - and after a windows re-install those programs might not install - drivers missing or whatever. Often applications will continue to run after a windows update - but will fail when one tries to re-install them on a brand new windows system. Also the original drivers you may have had might not be available any more on the vendors web site - or vendor might be out of business. The install media might also have become unreadable too - that can happen easily with old CD's etc - assuming your machine even has a connectable cd device. External HDD's can also become unreadable so having more than one separate backup seems to be eminently sensible.

Like all this stuff it really depends on what you use your computer for and what you have on it.

Over the years I've always found a quick system backup the most satisfactory.

On an average machine with an SSD as the backup medium - even connected via a USB it shouldn't take more than around 15 mins to backup or restore. I suspect if you ever have to re-install big complex things like photoshop and find the activation servers are unreachable you'll wish you HAD a system backup !!!.

However if what works for you works --so be it but I really think that advice is not wise for thousands of users here - especially if their machines get infected or whatever or in the case of hardware malfunction / upgrade.

Cheers
jimbo

 

I just now saw this. Almost all cloning programs can deal with differing sizes amongst sources and targets -- some programs will make the adjustments easier to do, some other programs will not make the adjustments easier to do. I'm still learning how to navigate MR7 when such differences have to be resolved.

 

Sorry for delay. Didn't see your follow-up question until now, @agent99. Yes, you could do that, no problem.