Need some basic backup advice

Madrona said:

For my personal data files (200gb - 500gb), how much space would I need on my external backup drives to back up the files and store disk images? What size of external backup drive should I look for?

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They would take up the same space on an image as on a hard drive. So the space taken on the backup drive would be - your 200gb, plus the space of Windows and any programs. So for example, my hard drive/nvme, with all my files on, is about 900gb. I use 2tb backup drives mainly, but then I can only just fit two images on one of those. You could maybe use 2 x 2tb drives and have a identical copy on each. Or, if you think it's going to be a lot more in future, 2 x 4tb. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but at one time it was thought a bigger drive, like a 4tb had a higher rate of failure than a smaller one. I assume that isn't the case any more as there are some really large external backup drives sold now.

So to start with, if you had, say 500gb files on your computer and say your c drive was 600gb altogether, then your image would also take up 600gb and you'd fit 3 images on a 2tb drive. So maybe if you had 4 x 2tb drives that would see you for quite a long time. 3 images on each 2tb x 2 - 6 images. Replace the oldest one when you do a new one. The other 2 x 2tb for identical images/copies in case one external hard drive fails.

Unfortunately they do fail sometimes, which is why I also use the idrive cloud backup. I've not heard of any issues with it. I've had external hard drives fail on me about 3 times. I feel much more relaxed with my files backed up in cloud backups as well.

Ghot said:

Best practice is to keep the used space on your Windows drive... small.
Like under say, 60GB.
Then backups and restores are fast.

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Depending on your applications installed, that's not always realistic. Some of my development program packages end up consuming 20GB. Of course, I'm a bit spoiled by the speed of NVMe drives in fast USB USB 3.2 enclosures for my backup drives...

gunrunnerjohn said:

Depending on your applications installed, that's not always realistic. Some of my development program packages end up consuming 20GB. Of course, I'm a bit spoiled by the speed of NVMe drives in fast USB USB 3.2 enclosures for my backup drives...

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I install all games and large programs on my storage drive.
My C:\ partition is 37GB. It take 1.5 minutes to make a backup, and 2 mins to restore from a backup.

For many years I suffered with backups that took forever.
Starting with Win 10 and 11... I decided to do things a bit different.
Now... I'm happy I did that.

Or. You could have back up drives for system images, and two backup drives SOLELY for your files. But either way you'd still need to regular re-image, or recopy new files onto an exernal drive. That can get quite time consuming. So you could maybe image once a week, and have daily cloud backups (for files). Where it just happens and no remembering or effort required.

Madrona said:

For my personal data files (200gb - 500gb), how much space would I need on my external backup drives to back up the files and store disk images? What size of external backup drive should I look for?

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1. (IMHO) If you use a laptop, then take two good external HDDs, such as WD 2Tb or Seagate 2Tb, to save files of photos, videos and movies.
It is undesirable to buy an SSD or USB flash drive for the archive, as data loss may occur during prolonged power outages.

2. Create 3 partitions on your internal drive(1Tb) :
100Gb – for Windows system (I prefer to use Windows 10)
200Gb is for Windows backup (I prefer to use Macrium Reflect v7.3.5672 or v8.0.7175 to create Backup).
700Gb – for programs, games, movies, data

3. Windows system partition backup is useful for quick Windows recovery if your System is "slow" or not working properly.

4. It is not necessary to backup your photos and videos, it is enough to duplicate files on different external HDDs, and periodically check files by checksums (I use the "MD5 Checksum Verifier" program to compare copies by checksums).

So the amount of space needed for a disk image of my c: drive will be roughly half of the amount of space taken up by the c: drive? I assume this is with the full compression option?

Also then, I don't need to reformat the c:: drive first, the image backup software will simply overwrite Windows with my new saved disk image?

Good to know.

I thought it would be the same amount of space as taken on your c drive. I'm sure someone will correct that if I'm wrong! That maybe depends on different imaging software.

Ghot said:

I install all games and large programs on my storage drive.
My C:\ partition is 37GB. It take 1.5 minutes to make a backup, and 2 mins to restore from a backup.

For many years I suffered with backups that took forever.
Starting with Win 10 and 11... I decided to do things a bit different.
Now... I'm happy I did that.

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I don't really care how long the backup takes, the automatic backups to my internal drives just happen how of sight and out of mind, I get a log email with the completion status. As far as the USB backups, it's a similar picture. The internal backups are quite fast in any case since they're happening at 5-6GB/sec between two NVMe drives. The 163G boot partition ends up being 35GB on the backup drive, so all the time is probably in the compression happening.

My USB backups are probably around fifteen minutes, again I just let them run in the background after I fire off the whole batch. In any case, I have to have the backup time delay at some point whether it's the boot drive or a "storage" drive, I don't want to lose that data either way. I find it cleaner to simply have all the installed applications on one partition.

I guess since I've never "suffered" with the time for backups, even back in the rotating drive era, I never worried about the time.

I don't even consider restore times at all. If I'm doing restores often enough for that to matter, I should be fixing the problems and not anguishing over the time they take!

Madrona said:

So the amount of space needed for a disk image of my c: drive will be roughly half of the amount of space taken up by the c: drive? I assume this is with the full compression option?

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One Backup file of Windows System Partitions is 5-10 times smaller than the Window System partitions.
A large backup storage partition is needed to store multiple backup copies (Windows 10, Windows 11).
Each user chooses the partition size independently.

Maybe an offbeat thought, but for large amounts of photos and other files, I have sometimes just used a spare laptop as one of my backups If you have one. I then have two copies of everything (accessible/viewable). And less likely to be dropped than an external hard drive. It does mean some organisation on the main computer, to know when to add newer files to the other computer.

Then you just need external back up drives for system images (and or cloud backup for files as well). There are various differentt ways of doing things. I don't partition a computer drive personally as I try and avoid complexity later (I just don't like partitions for some reason). But yes it does mean a bigger image backup if everything is on one drive. On the other hand, the files still need backing up as well, even if they're on a different partition or drive.

A personal preference, but I find that organizing my files into several partitions is quite useful. I have the boot drive that is just all the executable files, loaded applications, etc. I have a data drive that has my most important and most frequently changed data files, that gets daily automated backups, semi-weekly backups to the NAS, and monthly backups to one of the two archive drives. I also have an archive drive for installation files, etc., those don't get backed up often as it doesn't change that rapidly. Finally, I have my music partition that has all my ripped music, that also doesn't rapidly change, so it don't back it up as often.

oreyro said:

It is undesirable to buy an SSD or USB flash drive for the archive, as data loss may occur during prolonged power outages.

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Do you recommend hard drives over SATA SSDs for use in external drive enclosures? I checked and it looks like I can get a 2 TB HDD or a 2 TB SSD for around the same price

"Would I mount the disk image onto a drive with Windows already on it? Or would I mount the disk image onto a bare metal drive? Is the disk image bootable? I'm still not quite clear about it."

You need to make a bootable drive which would normally be a USB flash drive. That will contain typically Windows PE and the Imaging App.
You boot up with that USB flash drive then access your image.
That image is then restored to a new Laptop drive, maybe the same drive or whatever.

Of course you will need to test this bootable USB flash drive and how to boot it from your Laptop.
Usually you can mount the image and extract individual files in which case you are not doing a complete restore of the drive.

"What size of external storage drive should I get? 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB? I assume the disk images take up quite a bit of space, especially if I retain 2 or 3 of them for a couple of months.

Size of external drive is up to you, mine is 6 TB NAS, Laptop drive is 1 TB and anything from 300 GB to 700 GB is used. The disk Image sizes are broadly the same size.

"So the amount of space needed for a disk image of my c: drive will be roughly half of the amount of space taken up by the c: drive? I assume this is with the full compression option?"

Definitely not, even the compressed image (default compression) will be almost as much as the used space on your drive.
e.g.
My Laptop currently has 421 GB used, the images are around 384 GB(Hasleo), 403 GB(Easeus To Do).

2 TB is just not enough drive space for several images.

gunrunnerjohn said:

I don't really care how long the backup takes

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I like to use backup software like a... tool.

If I test some uncommon software, and if it's not worth keeping I just restore from a backup.
Then I don't need to worry if it left anything behind.
I find this is much easier than trying to track down possible issues. ^^

Helmut said:

"So the amount of space needed for a disk image of my c: drive will be roughly half of the amount of space taken up by the c: drive? I assume this is with the full compression option?"

Definitely not, even the compressed image (default compression) will be almost as much as the used space on your drive.
e.g.
My Laptop currently has 421 GB used, the images are around 384 GB(Hasleo), 403 GB(Easeus To Do).

2 TB is just not enough drive space for several images.

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From Ghot's link to Macrium:

Macrium Notes:
1. A full OS image backup will be approx. 1/2 the size of the total "used space" on the C:\ drive.
2. Backing up takes about 75 seconds for every 20GB of "used space" on the C:\ drive.

Madrona said:

From Ghot's link to Macrium:

Macrium Notes:
1. A full OS image backup will be approx. 1/2 the size of the total "used space" on the C:\ drive.
2. Backing up takes about 75 seconds for every 20GB of "used space" on the C:\ drive.

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Well, when I backup my Windows partition that has 160GB of used space, the backup file is 34GB, so it's more like 1/4 the size of the used space. I use Acronis True Image 2025.

gunrunnerjohn said:

Well, when I backup my Windows partition that has 160GB of used space, the backup file is 34GB, so it's more like 1/4 the size of the used space. I use Acronis True Image 2025.

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...at default compression, which is the best balance between size and speed.
I edited the guide, just now.

Madrona said:

Do you recommend hard drives over SATA SSDs for use in external drive enclosures? I checked and it looks like I can get a 2 TB HDD or a 2 TB SSD for around the same price

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To put it very roughly, to save information:
SSD uses the principle of an electric capacitor, and HDD uses the principle of a magnet.
The "capacitor" (SSD) must be periodically(at least once a month) "recharge", i.e. connect to the power supply.
The HDD does not need to be connected to the power supply to save information, but it is advisable to completely overwrite the information at least once a year, since the magnetization of the disk also decreases. Also, HDD "does not like" strong magnetic fields.
HDDs are currently losing competition to SSDs, so HDD production is declining, and HDD quality is falling accordingly.
It is advisable to use proven HDD manufacturers, such as WD, Seagate, and Toshiba.

Madrona said:

I just bought a multi-bay external USB hard drive enclosure (Terra Master) and trying to decide what size capacity of drives to get, how many, and what type.

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Continuation.
A reliable power supply is very important for HDD and SSD. If you buy a separate (empty) cheap HDD (SSD) box, then the power supply of such a box, as a rule, has low reliability.
You can connect an external HDD directly to your laptop.
The laptop's power supply has a fairly high reliability.

Forgot to ask....would my browser bookmarks be part of a system image? Or do I back those up separately?

Also, can I restore a disk image from one computer to a different computer? (for example, if I wanted to have two computers with the exact same c:\ drive)