Backup for Windows

FiestaRed

FiestaRed

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Mike
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Although I religiously back up my photography work, and to a number of different places, I'm ashamed to admit I don't do the same for my PC.

Having recently had a scare with Windows 10 not updating, I now realise I could have lost a lot of stuff and taking regular backups is something I must start to do as soon as possible. Can anyone please advise the best and simplest way to go about backing up my system properly? Either through the stuff that's available in Windows 10 or by buying software to do the job if that is a better way.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Win 10 has a reasonable inbuilt back up system, you could buy Acronis for not a lot of £ and back it all up to a separate HDD.
Personally I don't bother, I back up important data regularly( like every day or after every use) on memory sticks and or separate HDD.
Photos are on a separate HDD and I also use Zenfolio unlimited storage to which I copy photos.
If Windows should go t**s up I will simply format the HDD and reinstall the programs but I don't have a lot of programs.
I use google for e-mail. diary etc , photoshop CC and Office so reinstalling is not a big deal.
 
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If you want to back files and folders up so that they're still files and folders, rather than some proprietary format file, you could look at FreeFileSync. You set up a session of source folders (e.g. on your C drive) and destination folders (e.g. on an external E drive) plus a choice of one of four types of synchronisation (two-way, mirror, update, or custom) and optionally a set of filters (e.g. ignore all .bak files) and save that session. Then you click Compare to get a list of the changes that would be made if you went ahead with a sync. If you're happy with the result (and you can remove anything from the changes list) you go ahead and click Synchronise. And you can, of course, have as many sessions as you like, and more than one session can refer to any set of folders.

It's a lot easier to do than to describe, and once set up you can just click and go.
 
Thanks for all the help, really appreciated. I'll have a look at all the packages mentioned and try and take it from there.
 
I've used Acronis for a number of years and the advantage it that in the event of a problem I can restore my laptop to exactly the same state it was in when I did the 'image' ... down to the last file change, email etc. I don't need to install all of the software again and then restore the data, the whole thing just gets re-done as was.
 
I had used Replicator program from Karen Kenworthy for many years until relatively recently when with a Windows 10 update it no longer worked any more. Were she alive I am confident Karen would have made the minor changes necessary in a trice and it would have it back on the road in no time. Nevertheless I needed to find something else for the daily backup routines and dropped on Microsoft SyncToy; this works well and is dead simple to use. For creating backup OS disk images I use Macrium Free and, I suspect could use Macrium for file backups too if I was minded to.

Anthony.
 
:agree:
I've used Synctoy on Vista, 7 and now 10. You can't schedule it to run automatically but you can choose which folders you want to back up. I have one pairing which just backs up my financial folder and files, another that backs up pictures etc. and you can select to run all folder pairings at once. It is also easy to set up backup pairings to different drives. I back up my desktop to my laptop and also my desktop to an external drive, again I can do these separately or choose to back up everything at once.
 
Never having backed Windows up before, I'm not really sure what happens. I can see the software such as Acronis copies everything and I guess puts everything back on to the hard drive as it was if I ever had a problem. Does the other software such as Windows Agent, Veeam and FreeFileSync just copy my working files and I would have to reinstall the programmes that I have on my PC and then restore the files?
 
Veeam Windows Agent will allow you to choose what to back up, when to back up, and how often you want to back up, similar to Acronis & other packages previously mentioned. With Veeam you can do full volume backups or file/folder level backups. If you do a full volume backup you can still do a file level restore. Full volume backups can take longer than just backing up just your user folders obviously.

As well as backing up your HDD volume(s), if you want, Veeam Agent will create a system image file for you to use during a bare metal recovery (after replacing HDD for example). This includes any Windows drivers needed by your PC. Using the image file to boot your PC and then restoring from volume backups is the quickest way to restore your PC after a total wipeout. It will restore (at the point of backup) the Windows system (with any updates already installed ) along with any software applications you have installed (e.g. Photoshop, MS Office etc) and any user data such as docs, images etc.

This is much faster than manually installing Windows, applying updates, reinstalling software etc.

Whatever you use, test it thoroughly to make sure you can restore 'sample' files afterwards.
 
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FreeFileSync can, if run as Admin, copy anything from anywhere to anywhere except some system files. So you'd only use it to copy your own personal stuff, not operating system files. Also, when you install a program, the installer writes information to the Windows Registry so you wouldn't use FreeFileSync to back up programs and their data as you'd have to also back up those specific pieces of information from the Registry. So, it's great for backing up documents, photos, videos, and so on, but that's all.
 
Thanks again for all the help. Really appreciated.
 
One more question if I may. With the Acronis type of backup, I assume I'll need an external hard drive. Does Acronis write the backup and then the next time overwrite it or does it save backups for a period of time? I'm trying to work out what size external hard drive I'm likely to need.
 
FiestaRed said:
Never having backed Windows up before, I'm not really sure what happens. I can see the software such as Acronis copies everything and I guess puts everything back on to the hard drive as it was if I ever had a problem.
Click to expand...
Note - If you are backing up to the same disk as you have everything on, if you lose the disk you lose the backup too!

I'd get an external hard drive and back up to it. Say once a month.
Then put that drive somewhere else (workplace?).
That way if the worst happens you still have your drive.

Macruim / Acronis are very good. Veeam is great too.
By the sounds of it "bare metal backup" is what you are looking for.
 
Microsoft Synctoy it's free, it works and it's configurable to either add, append or sync single, multiple or everything.

Cant do to bad with something that works and was designed by Microsnot for Windows.
 
Captain Fizz said:
Note - If you are backing up to the same disk as you have everything on, if you lose the disk you lose the backup too!

I'd get an external hard drive and back up to it. Say once a month.
Then put that drive somewhere else (workplace?).
That way if the worst happens you still have your drive.

Macruim / Acronis are very good. Veeam is great too.
By the sounds of it "bare metal backup" is what you are looking for.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ian. In the post above yours, #14, I did ask about Acronis and external hard drives.
 
Having been through both Macrium & Acronis I have ended up using Easus ToDo Home software (the paid for version) which I found the easiest of the lot to use. https://www.todo-backup.com/home/ It offers backup, restore, cloning and copying.

Don't forget that for a "bare metal" backup and restore you will need to make a bootable recovery system either on CD/DVD or USB stick which all programs will let you make.
 
For how big a drive you would need, technically only just bigger than what you will use in total.
In reality getting a drive twice the size allows for growth and the ability to go back to previous versions.

My view on storage is to always buy twice as much as you think you need.
Has served me well in the last 20 years :)
 
I take backups daily to a networked server which has mirrored drives, once a month I take another backup to an external HDD which is only used for backup purposes.
 
neil_g said:
Another Veeam Agent for Windows recommendation here.
Click to expand...

Just been looking on YouTube, is Veeam Agent For Windows the same as Veeam Endpoint Backup?
 
Yes, Veeam Agent for Windows is a later version of Veeam Endpoint Backup.
 
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