Advice/tips On Back Up And Restore In Windows 10

Hi

I've been using Windows for a very long time and until now - surprising as it may seem - I have never used any back up/restore software. Mostly I just saved data to CDs, then DVDs and USB pen key.
On the rare occasions I have had an OS problem I have had OS recovery media.

Until that is recently I had a complete crash (after multiple failed restarts/repairs) on a relatively new Win 8.1 64 bit PC box (well old enough to be out of warranty).
Even the original Win 8.1 disc wouldn't enable a new install because of problems it said on the partitions.
In the one day I had at the location of the box, despite trying every possible route I couldn't solve problems. Because I just couldn't remain in the physical location of the box long enough to get help over the net, I had to ask the PC manufacturer what they could do and it was 'Return it to us with the original Win disc and COA Key and we will just do a clean reinstall to manufacturer state'. As any important data on the box was actually saved to One Drive, I didn't care about that.

Since I have two other systems - a Laptop with 8.1 64bit and a relatively new Laptop with Win 10 Home 64 bit, and two smart phones both Android - I thought the time had come to be more sensible.

So this is what I have done:
1. I purchased a Transcend Store Jet USB 3 2TB portable hard drive
2. Taken a 30 day trial of Acronis True Image 2016 Cloud (with the prospect of buying it, or similar at the end) for 3 computers and 10 mobile devices.

The next thing I did was to fully upgrade the 8.1 laptop to Win 10, as the new Laptop with Win 10 is fine and I'm quite happy with it.

Now that the two laptops are both Win 10, I have created a 'System Repair Disc' from within the OS itself for both, an Acronis Bootable Media disc for each, using the WinPE with Acronis Plug In method.
For both I have then from within Windows itself created a 'System Image' and saved both to the Transcend drive.
Using Acronis I have backed up both laptops to Acronis in the Cloud, and to the Transcend drive.

I found Acronis Cloud quite fiddly when wanting to do backups to cloud and a portable drive but that might just be my inexperience. But the Cloud backup takes absolutely forever (even though I'm on a fibre optic connection that is about 60mb down/20mb up), whereas the back ups to the Transcend 2 TB 2.5 inch USB 3.0 StoreJet H3B is lightening fast.

My questions to those with experience are:

1. Am I going over the top with having both Windows and Acronis created bootable rescue/repair disks?
2. With Acronis bootable media, should I have stuck to the standard bootable rescue media, rather than the Win PE method?
3. Am I going over the top having both Cloud storage and external USB flash drive storage, ie would I be just as well buying Acronis True Image 2016 with just external device back up?

4. Or should I just stick with Win 10 system imaging to an external device and not bother with Acronis at all?

Sorry this is long winded but as doing this, and using software for it, is entirely new to me I'd very much appreciate your thoughts.

Many thanks in advance and seasons greetings!

NB: When I get the PC box back from the manufacturer - probably just before New Year, I will be updating that to Win 10 and doing back ups for that third system
NBB: If you want to know the details hardware/software specs of the three systems, do please ask.

 

I go along with everything DavidGP has said and on my main PC I use Acronis 2014 and rely on it completely as it has come to my aid on numerous occasions over the years. However we have other systems here and I don't want to purchase additional Acronis licences for them so I use the free Macrium Reflect on those. Macrium Reflect has also proved completely reliable so rather than using either Acronis or the built-in system I can safely fully recommend that. The only other observation I have concerns the location of your personal profile which, over time can get pretty big. It's default location is on your system drive so that can cause your backups to be far too big and take far too long and, in the event you need to restore an earlier image, it all gets overwritten which could cause you serious problems. The answer is to shrink the system partition, create a data partition, and move all your documents, music etc on to it. You can then create a different backup regime for your data as imaging is certainly not the best way to do it.

 

Many thanks for that and I will follow that advice to use standard rescue media, and put the rescue media files on a bootable USB pen with useful tools. I will also not go with the 'Cloud' option for the reasons you give and its unbearable slowness. I think the twice weekly scheduled back up, keeping only 2 and doing the full back up option sounds good to me.

Much appreciated!
Have a good holiday.

 

I have three systems I will want to back up - 2 laptops and a PC box - so was thinking that if I convert the Acronis trial (for 3 systems) to a full purchase, it will do all I need.
On the newest laptop I have an SSD ('C') which I'm just using for the system and programs, and a separate SSHD Data Drive ('D') for docs, music etc
The other laptop and PC box I will do as you suggest.
That way 'system image' back ups can be on that SSD and the system drive partitions on the other two, and I can just back up personal stuff, separately, on the Transcend portable as and when needed.

One question for both of you, that may seem a bit obvious - I do keep stuff on One Drive, and on the two older systems all (not that much and within the free storage limit) docs, photos etc is stored there. I assume I don't need to back that up as I can get it anywhere/anytime online even if those systems are burnt in a fire!?

Thanks so much for your advice.
Happy holidays

 

You can't store system image backups on the same drive as the one being imaged. You can store images on the SSHD or on your portable drive

That's true, but personally I treat OneDrive as a reserve backup and use WinRAR for my primary data backups, creating daily backups of selected folders on my NAS.

Have a good festive season

 

Yes I worded that wrongly. What I meant is that the 'system image backups' I make and store on the portable drive, would be from the SSD on the new lap top, which only has the systems and programs on it, and the new partitioned drives containing the system/programs only on the two older systems. But all the backups would be saved only on the portable drive. It's big enough being 2TB.

 

Hi David

Some useful suggestions there. My One Drive account is the same on all three systems and the Android One Drive app on my smart phone, so that data is always available live. I'll be keeping all other personal data on the secondary data drive on the newest laptop, and I'll be shrinking and partitioning the one large C drive on the other systems, a laptop and PC box, to create separate data drives. I'll probably backup those data drives periodically to the Transcend portable drive. And as you suggest use Acronis to back up the OS drives of the three.

Thanks for all the help.