Backup to Dropbox and the like is a nice feature to have.įTP and SMB/AFP: Backing up to other computers or NAS boxes on your network or in remote locations (say, your parent’s house) is another way of physically safeguarding your data with an offsite, or at least physically discrete copy. Online storage services are a great way to maintain an offsite copy of your data. Online support: An offsite copy of your data is a hedge against physical disasters such as flood, fire, and power surges. Imaging is the most convenient to restore in case of a system crash, and also ensures you don’t miss anything important. Image backup/imaging: Images are byte-for-byte snapshots of your entire hard drive (normally without the empty sectors) or partition, and can be used to restore both the operating system and data. Some programs automatically select the appropriate files if you use the Windows library folders (Documents, Photos, Videos, etc.). Seagate, WD, and others provide backup utilities that are adequate for the average user.įile backup: If you want to back up only your data (operating systems and programs can be reinstalled, though it’s mildly time- and effort-consuming), a program that backs up just the files you select is a major time-saver. Additionally, if you intend to back up to a newly purchased external hard drive, check out the software that ships with it. Features you don’t need add complexity and may slow down your system. How to pick a backup softwareĪs with most things-don’t over-buy. We also test the USB boot drives created by the programs. We then mount the images and test their integrity via the program’s restore functions. This is largely to test reliability and hardware compatibility, but we time two: an approximately 115GB system image (two partitions), and a roughly 50GB image created from a set of smaller files and folders. The System Image Backup tool is located in the Windows Control Panel, but it’s in a different place on different versions of Windows.We run each program through the various types of backups it’s capable of. But free is free, and if you don’t need the extra features, the Windows tool offers a solid way to perform a full backup of your system. For example, both support incremental backups, password-protected images, and the ability to browse backups for individual files. Third-party apps like Macrium Reflect or Acronis True Image-at least, the paid versions-do offer some advanced features you won’t find in the Windows system image backup tool. RELATED: How to Use All of Windows 10's Backup and Recovery Tools With that in mind, however, image backups can still be really handy. It would be like trying to plug your hard drive into another PC and expecting everything to load well. You’re creating an image of your full Windows installation and, since Windows is set up specifically for your hardware, it just won’t work as-is in another PC. The biggest disadvantage with system image backups-other than taking a bit longer-is that you can’t restore the backup to a different PC. On the other hand, normal backup tools, including online backup services like Backblaze or Windows’ built-in File History feature, essentially copy your files to another location. No need to reinstall Windows or your apps. The advantage of a system image is that if a hard drive crashes, you can replace it, restore the image, and have your system right back to where it was when the image was captured. Open System Image Backup in Windows 10 and Windows 11Ī system image backup is essentially a complete snapshot of an entire hard drive.
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