About Windows PC backups

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2davidc8

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Aug 19, 2015
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Hi everybody,

I have been watching some YouTube videos and doing some reading about backing up a Windows PC. I am bit confused as to the terminology, and I need some help.

As I understand it, a "system image backup" is a backup of everything on your computer, including system files and your own personal files, written out to some external storage device like an external hard drive or the cloud.
But a "system recovery drive", say, on a USB drive, only let's you boot from it; it doesn't contain any of your personal files.

Am I correct so far?

Now, about File History: my understanding is that this is meant for your own personal files. Correct?
My questions:
  1. If I set File History to back up my chosen folders once a day, does it back up all the folders, regardless of whether anything has changed (full backup), or only the files that have changed (incremental backup).
  2. In either case, does it keep the older version or replace it?
I ask this because the answer will determine where I back up my files to.

Finally, how often do you recommend doing a system image backup? Is it good enough to do this once, and from then on, just set "restore points"?

I appreciate your help. BTW, I am talking about Win 10 22H2 and Win 11 22H2 PCs.
Thanks.
David
 
1st rule of backing up? Do it. 2cd rule? Never have your backup file/image on the same drive. If that drive crashes, your backup crashes with it.

I use Hasleo for my backups at home and Macrium Reflect Server at work.

You can create a bootable recovery drive with this that yes, allows you to boot the PC in recovery mode and restore your backup from the path(drive) you chose to save the backup.

I'm not sure about File History as I've never used it. This is one area where I'm partial to 3rd party software.

2davidc8 said:
Finally, how often do you recommend doing a system image backup?
Click to expand...
It depends on how far back you are willing to go with your data. I make one full backup, and then daily incrementals saving 7 of those.



At work on the server, I have 2 Full,30 incrementals, saved to a secondary SSD. This is then backed up to a 3rd HDD, this is then backed up to an Offsite NAS at my home.

Differences between Full, Incremental, and Differential backups.
 
I don't know much about File History, but from my understanding it only backs up files that have been changed since the last backup, like a differential backup.

You can configure File History to keep older versions for a specified period of time, which includes forever.

A full backup may require some time, so you need to consider at what time you can make a full backup and preferably do it frequently, say once a week. I personally have a full backup automatically running on a weekly basis and use differential backups for all other days. I have a separate hard drive dedicated solely for backups, because I seldom need to use a backup from a while ago, I configured my backup system to only delete backups when space runs out.
 
@xrobwx71 I know you like Hasleo and Macrium Reflect, but what about the "new and improved" backup in the latest Windows update? For any of these 3 backup options, what happens if you have a scheduled backup but your computer happens to be turned off at the scheduled time? Also, in these backups, is each backup full or incremental?
 
Being new I have no experience with it nor has anyone else. Backups are not something I'm willing to test except on a dedicated test machine where the data is worthless. I have not had time to do this. It's not been out long enough even for an educated guess.

When it comes to backups, I tested Hasleo for almost 9 months and now use it with the exception of Macrium on the Server at work. I used to use Macrium exclusively when it was free.
 
I haven't used system restore in years after I had my share of nightmares with it back in the days when it was terrible. I actually disabled it, because with some changes for customization, Windows used to automatically make a system restore point that hog free drive space. Quite a few times I was wondering what was going on when I lost a lot of free space in mere days and learned after brief investigations that system restore points were taking that much space. At those times, I was already using Macrium Reflect and saw no need for continuing with system restore so I disabled it.

If I were to consider using it, I'd do a series of tests first to learn how reliable it is in different situations with for example recovering a file, a directory, a registry change, or a program.

I do recommend system restore as it's better than nothing.
 

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