Macrium Backup on Laptop


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man00

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I gave 500GB SSD I made a partition 100GB
Can I back the remaining 400GB to the 100GB
and if need be restore from the 100GB to the 400GB
Using the USB boot Macrium disk?
 

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man00 said:
Can I back the remaining 400GB to the 100GB
Click to expand...
Depends on how much data it contains - if more then the 100GB target, then obviously no, you can't.
man00 said:
and if need be restore from the 100GB to the 400GB
Click to expand...
Of course it'll fit.

In both cases, Macrium (and other similar software) also look at the volume of data, not just the "fixed" size of a partition.
 

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man00 said:
I gave 500GB SSD I made a partition 100GB
Can I back the remaining 400GB to the 100GB
and if need be restore from the 100GB to the 400GB
Using the USB boot Macrium disk?
Click to expand...
Aside from fact that the most you could backup in compressed format is around 200 GB, the more important point is that a backup to same physical drive is really a bad plan.

If the drive fails, SO DOES THE BACKUP.

As a minimum use a second drive. This can be internal or external, although an external drive is safer in the sense if pc say caught on fire, an external drive would be less likely to suffer damage.
 

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cereberus said:
same physical drive is really a bad plan.
Click to expand...
Cereberus is so right. Never backup to the same drive. If you want to partition the space for another purpose, that's fine, just not for backup of C:
 

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I only do my backups to external drives. Your drive for backups should be at least double the size of the drive you're backing up. If you're backing up a 500 GB drive, you should put your backups on at least a 1 TB external drive. I've been using external SSD drives, as they're much faster
 

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OMG!! Was the OP referring to partitions on the same drive??? Missed that altogether.
 
Last edited:

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I make the backup partitions on my laptops larger than the system / data partition so I can save several full backups. You also need to backup to an external drive in case of internal drive failure.
 

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Steve C said:
I make the backup partitions on my laptops larger than the system / data partition so I can save several full backups. You also need to backup to an external drive in case of internal drive failure.
Click to expand...
That is fine provided you pragmatically accept you may lose a few days data / updates (unless you backup to external drive every day).

I rather do the same i.e. backup to separate internal drive, then to an external drive (less frequently).
 

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Hyper-V (a vm runs almost as fast as my older laptop)
I'm going to add that imo making backups to the same drive is OK as long as you accept the risks already pointed out and that you periodically just copy the backup files (which are a single file for a full backup) to an external drive.

Also why use bootable recovery media when you have Macrium installed... I'm assuming you have it installed... as it is just so much less faffing around to restore directly from within Windows using the program.

If you look at 'This PC' in File Explorer you will see how much of your 400Gb is used. I don't think you said if this drive contains the operating system or not or whether it is just 'data'.

In my case the C drive takes around 43Gb as a Macrium backup image and if anyone wonders F and M drives are second internal drive..

Screenshot 2024-05-17 100049.png
 

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Mooly said:
In my case the C drive takes around 43Gb as a Macrium backup image and if anyone wonders F and M drives are second internal drive..
Click to expand...
I use this with a second drive on as many of my clients as I can. I set up an auto backup for them so they do not have to think about it. I have saved the bacon of quite a few of them when they screw up.
 

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man00 said:
I gave 500GB SSD I made a partition 100GB
Can I back the remaining 400GB to the 100GB and if need be restore from the 100GB to the 400GB Using the USB boot Macrium disk?
Click to expand...
I find that the size of the image file is about 70% of the total size of the used space on the drive being backed up.
cereberus said:
...a backup to same physical drive is really a bad plan.
If the drive fails, SO DOES THE BACKUP.
Click to expand...
I have more laptops than I have external usb drives to hold the images. So that I can have all my machines making their images at the same time, for those that have the space for a second data partition on the same drive I'll put the images there. It's convenient if you need to do a restore, and if you've also added Macrium recovery to the Boot Menu you don't even need a recovery boot usb.

Of course, when imaging is done I always copy the image to my external backup drive too - keeping your only backup on the same drive is a disaster waiting to happen.
 

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    fully 'Windows 11 ready' laptop. Windows 10 C: partition migrated from my old unsupported 'main machine' then upgraded to 11. A test migration ran Insider builds for 2 months. When 11 was released on 5th October 2021 it was re-imaged back to 10 and was offered the upgrade in Windows Update on 20th October. Windows Update offered the 22H2 Feature Update on 20th September 2022. It got the 23H2 Feature Update on 4th November 2023 through Windows Update, 24H2 on 3rd October 2024 through Windows Update by setting the Target Release Version for 24H2, and 25H2 on 30th September 2025 through Windows Update by setting the Target Release Version for 25H2.

    UPDATE - 11 April 2026: due to mechanical deterioration this PC has been retired from active duty. The OS with all software and files has been migrated to my System Seven in 'Other systems' to carry on as my general purpose 'main machine'.

    I've now clean installed 25H2 and used Garlin's scripts to update Secure Boot to CA 2023 and revoke the PCA 2011 certificates. It's new role is to test secure boot issues.

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  • My SYSTEM THREE is a Dell Latitude 5410, i7-10610U, 32GB RAM, 512GB NVMe ssd, supported device running Windows 11 Pro.

    My SYSTEM FOUR is a 2-in-1 convertible Lenovo Yoga 11e 20DA, Celeron N2930, 8GB RAM, 256GB ssd. Unsupported device: currently running Win10 Pro, plus Win11 Pro RTM and Insider Dev, Beta, and RP 24H2 as native boot vhdx.

    My SYSTEM FIVE is a Dell Latitude 3190 2-in-1, Pentium Silver N5030, 8GB RAM, 1TB NVMe ssd, supported device running Windows 11 Pro, plus Insider Beta, Dev, and Canary builds (and a few others) as a native boot .vhdx.

    My SYSTEM SIX is a Dell Latitude 5550, Core Ultra 7 165H, 64GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, supported device, Windows 11 Pro 24H2, Hyper-V host machine. Updated to 25H2 on 30th September 2025.

    My SYSTEM SEVEN is a Lenovo Thinkpad T580, Intel Core i7-8650U, 16GB RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD + 2nd 512GB NVMe SSD, a supported device for Windows 11. This is my current general purpose 'main machine'. The installed Windows 11 Home from my System One has been migrated to this machine.
Bree said:
I find that the size of the image file is about 70% of the total size of the used space on the drive being backed up.

I have more laptops than I have external usb drives to hold the images. So that I can have all my machines making their images at the same time, for those that have the space for a second data partition on the same drive I'll put the images there. It's convenient if you need to do a restore, and if you've also added Macrium recovery to the Boot Menu you don't even need a recovery boot usb.

Of course, when imaging is done I always copy the image to my external backup drive too - keeping your only backup on the same drive is a disaster waiting to happen.
Click to expand...
Macrium recovery to the Boot Menu...I will have to check into that
 

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At a glance

windows 11Intel i5-10600kf32gb corsair vengerance proAMD RX 6500XT
OS
windows 11
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Manufacturer/Model
Antec/Case
CPU
Intel i5-10600kf
Motherboard
GIGABYTE Z590 UD AC
Memory
32gb corsair vengerance pro
Graphics Card(s)
AMD RX 6500XT
Sound Card
onboard
Monitor(s) Displays
40" Hisense
Hard Drives
Samsung 850
Samsung 870
Seagate 2TB
PSU
EVGA GQ 750
Just clone your disk to an external ssd once a month/week/whatever interval you want and mount a second internal drive and use a task scheduled Robocopy script to copy files daily. Won’t lose a single thing.
 

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