Question What is the recommended software to backup a Windows 10 PC?

[tablespoon]

Hello, what is the recommended software to backup a Windows PC?

How are those included Backup and Restore as well as File History programs within Windows 10?

 

[enochjohn90]

Do you mean backing it up to the cloud or to a hard disk?

 

[tablespoon]

External drive, not cloud.

 

[deustroop]

External drive, not cloud.

Cloning a disk with Macrium Reflect 8

Cloning a disk with Macrium Reflect 8

Using Macrium Reflect, it is possible to clone an entire drive or specific partitions on a drive. This is useful if you are upgrading to a larger drive and can often be faster than imaging the source drive and restoring to the destination drive. Cloning your drive will create a bootable copy of...

www.macrium.com

 

[WilliamM2]

Here is info in this thread:

Info - FYI, No more Macrium Reflect Free Edition after current v. 8

Free Macrium says Free Reflect will be retired as explained near the bottom of Link. It's a little confusing. Mid-page they explain "extended support" for v. 8 until till a year past whenever in future they release Reflect v. 9. I think this is about the paid version only. Then lower on that...

forums.anandtech.com

 

[tablespoon]

On the internet, most people suggested using the imaging approach for backup and the cloning approach for upgrading the internal main drive.
Why not cloning as frequent as imaging? It requires one less disk, no rescue media and faster by just swapping the internal NVMe of the PC.

 

[hoangcf]

Paragon Backup And Recovery

 

[WilliamM2]

On the internet, most people suggested using the imaging approach for backup and the cloning approach for upgrading the internal main drive.
Why not cloning as frequent as imaging? It requires one less disk, no rescue media and faster by just swapping the internal NVMe of the PC.

Imaging requires less disk space. Cloning requires two disks, the original and the clone.
Imaging requires the original, and a second disk that can hold images from SEVERAL systems.
Imaging uses less disks. I like to backup the images too though. So with two external drives I can store and backup images for all my immedite families systems.

BTW, Windows install media can also be used as a rescue disk.

 

[OlyAR15]

Another way to save disk space is to just do a files and folders backup. There is no pressing need to image your entire disk since it is easy to re-install windows and your apps. You really just need to back up your data.

 

[WilliamM2]

Another way to save disk space is to just do a files and folders backup. There is no pressing need to image your entire disk since it is easy to re-install windows and your apps. You really just need to back up your data.

It takes me a couple days to install Windows, all my software, and customise/tweak it just the way I like. It takes 5 minutes to re-image that custom install, should a drive fail.

I also back up files weekly or more, but they are not on the OS disk.

 

[Red Squirrel]

There's a program called Syncback that I've used on XP machines. I have it setup on my dad's computer to backup his data to external drives. Upon quick search I did find it, but not sure if this is the legit site or not. Maybe someone can confirm whether or not it's legit.

Backup Software that does everything you need, and much more

Backup files and data to local devices, all major cloud services, FTP, SFTP and more. Delta-Copy, versioning, file integrity, ransomware detection...

www.2brightsparks.com

For imaging I like to use Acronis, it's not free but also not that expensive, so it's well worth just paying for it imo. Just need to create the boot CD then you can image any machine. I tend to image a machine a month or two into a fresh install that way I have the system running the way I want. From there I just do file level backups. The image is good if your entire OS conks out, it's faster than reinstalling everything again.

 

[tablespoon]

Imaging requires less disk space. Cloning requires two disks, the original and the clone.
Imaging requires the original, and a second disk that can hold images from SEVERAL systems.
Imaging uses less disks. I like to backup the images too though. So with two external drives I can store and backup images for all my immedite families systems.

BTW, Windows install media can also be used as a rescue disk.

So the main advantage in using the imaging approach is that it saves space?
If I have a dedicated 2TB NVMe SSD for an internal 2TB NVMe SSD, the cloning approach is also fine as long as I clone as frequent as if I were doing to imaging?

 

[tablespoon]

Another way to save disk space is to just do a files and folders backup. There is no pressing need to image your entire disk since it is easy to re-install windows and your apps. You really just need to back up your data.

That is what I did in the past. The main problem is that the date and time of the files in the backup media are changed to those when the backup was done. I want to keep the original file/folder creation date and time. Is there a good way to do it under Windows 10?

 

[WilliamM2]

So the main advantage in using the imaging approach is that it saves space?
If I have a dedicated 2TB NVMe SSD for an internal 2TB NVMe SSD, the cloning approach is also fine as long as I clone as frequent as if I were doing to imaging?

No, the main advantage of imaging is that it's quicker, and less hassle. It's also built into Windows, and requires no extra software.
I image bout every two months, I backup files more often.

If you have two drives in the system, you can backup/sync files automatically with free software.

 

[tablespoon]

No, the main advantage of imaging is that it's quicker, and less hassle. It's also built into Windows, and requires no extra software.
I image bout every two months, I backup files more often.

If you have two drives in the system, you can backup/sync files automatically with free software.

Which Windows built-in imaging app are you talking about?

 

[WilliamM2]

Which Windows built-in imaging app are you talking about?

Go to control panel, choose backup and restore.