System backup for Windows 10 - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2019, 08:21:03 pm
content: I am recently back to Windows 10 on a bare metal due to (trial) architecture change for Windows-only workstation (Intel->AMD). Still early days how the required software (that available in Windows only) will perform and how long (or may be permanently) will keep in this way.Afterspentwasted quite a lot of time to install everything, update etc, my thoughts to avoid next time or if any clusterf%*k happened.I already have a solution in place to backup work files, interested only in full system backup on infrequently basis.Ideally, a software that allows me:- be independent from Windows 10, so no Windows software on same machine- boot from an external drive- clone/restore a whole source drive to/from an external/internal drive or over networkI don’t mind to pay lower 3 figures for the right solution.Is there someone using similar?

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 12:30:03 am
content: Quote from: olkipukki on September 06, 2019, 08:21:03 pmNot sure if this is any good to you but have you tried Macrium Reflect 7?Now there is a free for home/commercial just to clone and make disc images.I paid for mine but as at the time they only had a 30 day trial with all the features unlocked unlike that Acronis.I don't use it in windows to backup the local windows drive and I haven't tried that yet as I brought it just to disc image or clone customers drives.Once installed you can make a bootable usb stick (Menu -> Other tasks -> Create Media Rescue) and it will automatically include the drivers for the mass storage and network controllers.I just install the home version one on the customers to make a bootup copy on a pen drive so if the windows updates fail and the restore doesn't work in event that it can't bootup they can extract the image to another drive and recover the contents later. I expect them bring or buy USB backup drives.Only two issues I found:1: The block level driver has caused stability issues on two different installations. It is optional after the install so I untick it.2: The cloning can sometimes fail (I mean other drives that I plug in to disc image not the local one) on certain drives and it turned out that the shadow copier was accessing the drive so by removing the drive letters it starts and finishes without any problem.There is an option to ignore bad sectors in (Defaults -> advanced) but if there are problems with the file system and over a simple shutdown flag not set it is set not to clone at all and this seems to also be the case with Clonezilla as well.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 12:58:49 am
content: I have been using the Image for Windows suite from Terabyte Unlimited for a long time now. Image. It is very powerful and reliable, and you get a version that installs and can run from within Windows, but you also can use a DOS boot disk version or a Linux Boot disk version that can both boot from a CD/DVD or USB stick. Probably can put it on a hard drive, but I have never tried.The Linux boot is UEFI compatible and there is a UEFI version of the DOS boot disk. The utility to burn CDs or USB disks is included (makedisk.exe).All the Windows, Dos and Linux boot choices give the same options. The Windows version gives the options of using either Windows shadow copy or their original drive snapshot tool called Phylock to capture the state of the drive at a point in time to make the image. As a result, the image includes everything including things like registry files.The boot disks support networking, so you can boot from a USB stick and save to a network location. It can do differential imaging and it can merge differential images.It can image to and from .VMDK virtual drives, so you can capture a drive on a PC and run it on, say, Virtualbox, or you can make a sysprep installer for a Windows version on Virtualbox, and write copies to hard drives. Very useful.Works with FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, ReiserFS, and XFS partitions. If something uses these partitions, you can image it. This includes Windows (including servers - no special server version needed), Apple, Linux, DVD recorder drives, etc.You have to pay, but you get free updates forever for the version you are on. They stick to one version for many years. I have been using it for something like 15 years and they have only changed the major version once. They do very regular minor version updates.The Linux boot disk comes bundled with a number of other tools including a tool to mount and unmount partitions, Midnight Commander (a powerful file management tool - like Norton Commander on steroids). Good for recovering files from damaged Windows PC's as it bypasses the Windows folder protections - you can copy files from user directories without knowing the usernames and passwords.There is a browser tool for the image files, so you can easily recover files and folders from an image file.The price is US$38.94 and there is a 30 day trial available.https://www.terabyteunlimited.comRichard

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 01:28:07 am
content: On that Terabyteunlimited website BootIt® Bare Metal boot selector thing.https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-bare-metal-ss.htmThat looks really good.I have been looking for something like that for sometime.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 01:34:26 am
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on September 07, 2019, 01:28:07 amTerabyte is much more of an engineering tool company then a consumer solution company. They make these tools that let you control everything. So their tools are powerful, but can scare or confuse non-technical users. If you like being able to choose exactly what you want a tool to do, Terabyte products are really worth a try.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 01:41:21 am
content: Here's a joke: I tend to get scared when I come across tools like the new Acronis that promise things that it can't do if I pay and don't deliver but confuse me over themenuslarge tiles.https://web.archive.org/web/20050515000000*/terabyteunlimited.comSo Terabyteunlimited has been on archive since 1997 and despite endless searching and all the crap reviews on the others before I found that Macrium which I paid much more for I never came across it before and they show pictures of what the packages and it's reasonably priced.Thank you.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 01:54:33 am
content: Terabyteunlimited is very well known to IT professionals, but if you were giving advice to ordinary users, you will probably suggest something like Acronis. I think that is why it has been a bit invisible.It is not that their interface isn't fairly elegant, and it has a simple mode that chooses good defaults for you, but it still has way too many options for most users. If you tell it to copy a blank disk over your Windows C: drive, it will do it very happily. It assumes you know what you are doing.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 08:08:32 am
content: Thanks for the detailsTerabyte looks impressive, and for $50 bargain offers more than needed right now.Also, they have comprehensive manuals in PDF, that's great to have in a place especially for rare usage software rather than rely on webpages

author: Jookia
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 09:09:53 am
content: Doesn't the built-in backup and restore create system images, which can be restored with a startup CD?

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 09:23:11 am
content: Windows backup? afaik its a toy that doesnt do full backup, no such thing as fresh install. running startup CD and try to recover backup files will spit error messages to you. a waste of time and real frustration in the time when we really need our system back and up again in quick time. i will never trust Windows backup ever not to mention it will degrade performance and HDD space unecesarily if you enable auto backup/restore point creation.otoh AOMEI Backupper is easy to use and free, i never need a pdf or help manual to understand it. but i never try raw boot using its feature (maybe it has, but its not my favorite workflow anyway) in case of catastrophic crash that i cant boot from my OS HDD, i'll prepare/keep a basic/fresh OS install on another HDD with AOMEI and the backup data in it, put my main (need to be restored) HDD as secondary drive and do the restore. no need lower 3 figure price, just the price for an backup HDD. i think i've downloaded and tried few other recovery solutions mentioned, but AOMEI is still my favourite. ymmv.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 09:42:36 am
content: https://clonezilla.org/

author: digsys
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 10:03:21 am
content: +1 for all the Terrabyte tools !! Used on many systems for many years - NEVER failed me, easy to use and straightforward.

author: Chris_Walch
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2019, 12:31:39 pm
content: Windows 10 does come with two backup solutions- FileHistory to save your documents, pictures, etc.- Backup and Restore to do image based backups, just like Windows 7 and 8 did.There are quite a number of third party tools, some are even free - so just test them.I'm using Acronis which works most of the time just fine.

author: JustMeHere
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2019, 03:03:35 am
content: Have you considered software RAID1?

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 11, 2019, 03:20:18 am
content: Quote from: JustMeHere on September 11, 2019, 03:03:35 amIt only protects against drive failure. Not a backup solution at all.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2019, 04:37:12 am
content: At some time in the past I had trouble restoring a system image after a drive failure because I bought a new drive that was larger. Not sure if that is still a problem but I don't fully trust the Windows system restore. It probably works well for recovering to the same drive but for a drive failure it could be a problem.Whatever solution you finally settle on at least make sure you test it out. Which means swapping the second drive into your device. Since doing that with a SSD upgrade I am just using the tools I used to do that. (www.easeus.com) I can be sure to be back up and running at the point I was a month or two ago with just a screwdriver.I do also backup directories with personal files more frequently to a USB drive.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2019, 11:41:55 am
content: I have ruled out "workarounds" such as RAIDs and build-in Windows backup "solution".Finally, I got a Terabyte license and will try it, hopefully will works as expected.Also, it seems that Terabyte allows to convert an image to a virtual machine!I would say - very handy for me, move these around and eventually park under Proxmox.

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2019, 02:42:04 pm
content: One more thing on Terabyte. I use it on Windows 7, but always do the image creation and restore from the Image for Linux CD. Never trusted shadow copy. And I also use Veracrypt whole drive encryption. But I can still make a "smart" image of C:, used sectors only, no paging or hibernation files, because Terabyte also includes Veracrypt for Linux on the CD. So booting from that, I can mount the encrypted C: in Veracrypt using my password, then use Image to make the image. Works the same way on a restore. So you can have an encrypted drive, but still make and restore images as though it was not encrypted, with the same size image files. I image C: once a month - just *before* running Windows Update.The challenge for me is going to be a new Windows 10 computer, and whether my method will work there. So I would be interested in the OP's experience, including how Win10 deals with UEFI, SecureBoot, etc. Can you boot directly to the Image for Linux thumb drive, which you would need to do to restore an image?

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2019, 11:16:16 pm
content: All I want a backup program to do is:Create a full disk image that can be used to re-create a bootable drive. Preferably, it should simultaneously create a bootable USB or CD that can restore that image onto a blank drive.(Currently using Clonezilla for this.)Bypass the normal permissions issues and back up all the User's "user data" to a browseable filesystem. (Currently using Windows Explorer for this. Painfully.)Share the same backup storage device for multiple systems.The procedures I'm using are relatively painful - I wouldn't suggest them to my less-technical family members. The "pro" backup utilities (including ones I've paid for) all seem to implement complex scheduling schemes that include (sometimes multiple) background windows processes that do ... something.Is there something like what I'm looking for?)(Hmm. Ideally, I'd also like to back up important Applications (but not ALL applications) so that they can be restored onto a fresh disk without hunting down installation media and license keys...)

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 12, 2019, 08:35:56 am
content: I always consider the system/apps to be a throwaway. When I need to reinstall it it'll be a few years since original install, I want to get rid of the junk (aka recent image is no good) and an image made at the time of the original install after all apps were installed is also no good since over a few years all the apps will need updates (as well as the system itself obviously), some I won't be using anymore, new ones I need won't be there so better and quicker to just start fresh. I do have a folder with all the installers for specific stuff and the licenses are either there or in my email archive. I can reinstall a whole system with everything I need in about an hour, so no biggie. I found that all attempts to "simplify" things by making an image of the system drive always actually cause more issues/take more time than doing a fresh install.I store all my user data on a separate drive, and have 2 complete file-based backups of that. From the system drive I only back up my user profile minus a bunch of obviously unnecessary stuff so that what's temporarily on my desktop, downloads folder and the like is taken care of.I just use a simple program, SyncBack SE to handle all the backup/syncing between drives. One profile to mirror the user profile minus some selections into a folder on the data drive, and one to mirror the data drive onto the external backup drives which I rotate and store one off site.Quote from: westfw on September 11, 2019, 11:16:16 pmThat's typically not an option, you get either all or nothing. It's almost impossible to know what a particular app puts where, especially those with pesky licensing systems that on purpose put stuff in the most improbable locations to try and (usually unsuccessfully...) avoid tampering with the licensing.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2019, 12:32:35 pm
content: Quick update:I have started to use Terabyte software and tried the following:1) created Image for UEFI bootdisk on an external USB drive - works fine2) booted (1) anda) created a full disk copy : I have 2x 970 PRO 512GB in the system, copy & validation took approx 15min, tested a boot on both drives - works fineb) created a backup to external SSD, that's took ~2 hours transfer 1/2TB to Samsung T5One of the disk 2(a) has disabled to avoid any interference and solely for full backup purpose.The next step, restore a 2(b) backup on the same system and another machine.I didn't install Terabyte software on Windows and not planning to do so.P.S.Bonus point - Terabyte has DOS version, might work for my vintage pet projects aka DOS, Windows NT/95 era

author: digsys
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 14, 2019, 12:51:44 pm
content: Quote from: olkipukkiGood news. As I've said before, I've used it for many many years, on 100s machines by now. In some cases, Idoinstall it on Windows, usually I make them a "master".Also run about every version, including bootable DOS mode. Every part works. I do not do past Windows 7 though, and have no inclination to :-)

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2019, 01:01:34 pm
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 14, 2019, 12:32:35 pmI tend to use the Image for Linux version instead of the Image for UEFI boot disk. It is both UEFI and non-UEFI compatible and you get a full Linux environment. So you can mount drives, copy and edit files, change partitions - whatever you can normally do in Linux.The plus for the UEFI boot disk is it will start up much faster.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2019, 01:11:02 pm
content: Quote from: amspire on October 14, 2019, 01:01:34 pmYep, thats in my wish list.My first priority was solve 'a problem' in some minimalist way. I think Terabyte has managed it, ticked all boxes and allowing to do more.

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2019, 09:04:36 pm
content: Quote from: olkipukki on October 14, 2019, 12:32:35 pmNot sure whether your test included making an image file, which isn't bootable, but contains all the used sectors of the original partition except for the paging file and hibernation file, and is further compressed. Then of course you would need to test restoring from that image file back to the original partition. It would be great if that process works on Windows 10, preferably using the Image for Linux boot CD or thumb drive.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 14, 2019, 10:39:59 pm
content: Quote from: Peabody on October 14, 2019, 09:04:36 pmExactly, except Image for UEFI vs Linux booted from 1GB USB drive.This is 2.b mentioned above, a compressed image size approx 90GB copied to external Samsung T5 1TB SSD.I managed to test the restore a whole internal drive, all works fineAlso, I did a few backups again and these completed for less than a hour now.Updated:my source system is Windows 10

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2019, 02:45:24 am
content: QuoteWait... How did you create the Terabyte boot disk without installing their SW on windows? On a separate non-windows system?

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2019, 04:32:24 am
content: So the image file was 90GB? How many GB are shown as "used" in the partition's properties? On my Windows 7 computer, the C partition is 95GB, of which about 42GB are used. But that includes the paging file, which is 8GB, so the net used is 34GB. The image file for that is about 19GB after compression, and the image creation process to a Western Digital Passport USB3 drive takes about 25 minutes. I was hoping Windows 10 would be similar, but it appears to be far larger than 7.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2019, 05:03:41 am
content: Quote from: westfw on October 15, 2019, 02:45:24 amYou can download the ISO's for all the different bootable versions. Terabyte Unlimited is pretty good at giving a lot of options.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2019, 05:41:07 am
content: Doesn't look like terrabyte does incrementals and differentials.Macrium does, I've configured it to do one monthy full image with weekly differentials and daily incrementals.This is very fast and it uses shadow copy, so works online and no bitlocker problems.Recovery is possible via the bootable environment on a usb stick.Images are protected from altering by their image guardian as response to cryptolockers.Overall works nice as background backup solution, but also has basic imaging/cloning capabilities like Terrabyte.It cannot image defective drives.Don't get Acronis, they fail simple tasks and ask you more money every year.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2019, 06:02:22 am
content: Quote from: Jeroen3 on October 15, 2019, 05:41:07 amTerabyte's software does differentials and incrementals and can re-consolidate them into a single backup file if you want.I do not know how you can make an "image guardian" that is immune to viruses, but for me, I just do not need it. If I want to set up a regular backup, I do it to an external NAS that has no shares exposed, and that uses a BTRFS file system that saves the files in a read only form. I will regularly synch that NAS and all its snapshots to a second NAS. I also find a way to get copies off site. I just feel this is a much safer solution.Macrium could be a nice package - never tried it. I saw they make you pay extra for a server version - hate that. A server is just another PC. The only way they can make a PC version not work with a server is if they deliberately cripple their software and Terabytes has never done that.

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2019, 08:47:03 am
content: Quote from: westfw on October 15, 2019, 02:45:24 amNo, I didn't and that's correct way to manage off-line backups imho.Terabyte provides MAKEDISK tool (Windows GUI app in my example) to build a bootable disk as part of BootIt Collection.If you have TeraByte Unlimited license, you can make a boot disk with Image for UEFI/BIOS-DOS/etc at the same time.Basically, this is a standalone wizard with a few clicks (or around 10 in advance mode) and an external drive - job done

author: olkipukki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2019, 09:05:37 am
content: Quote from: Peabody on October 15, 2019, 04:32:24 amYes, that's right, 90GB whole drive (include Windows partitions) from ~200GB used. Not too bad, isn't?The paging file (~10GB) was omitted during the backup.

author: LeonR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2019, 02:22:09 pm
content: Quote from: Mechatrommer on September 07, 2019, 09:23:11 amThe version included on Windows Server 2008 R2 is pretty nice, actually. It uses VSS (pretty handy technology unbeknownst or ignored by many sysadmins) for very fine incremental copy granularity and allow for a full system restore in case the OS becomes corrupt or a disk failure. I've used this before to recover a system where the two disks from a RAID-1 died in less than a day apart from each other. Haven't used the desktop versions, though.Quote from: olkipukki on September 11, 2019, 11:41:55 amRAID isn't a workaround for proper backups. If the data is important, just remember the321rule:3copies, using2different media types and1of them is offsite.Quote from: westfw on September 11, 2019, 11:16:16 pmI've tried backup/imaging/partition managing solutions from some vendors and stuck with Paragon's Hard Disk Manager for some time now. I think there's a trial for it when you install and don't use a serial. Aside from the application backup you mentioned, it covers the others bases.https://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-windows/They are also offering a free version of Backup and Restore. It offers less features but I think you can use it to see if the backup module suit your needs.https://www.paragon-software.com/free/br-free/