Need Help With Backups Made With Macrium Reflect

Would someone please help me sort out a problem with my Macrium Reflect backups! I'm using Windows 10 and the free version of Macrium. I made the stupid mistake of doing a full back up of the entire hard drive with every backup and filled up my external hard drive. Now I'm afraid of deleting the earliest backups to make room because I had a computer problem at one point.... don't want to lose data.

My question is if I mount the earlier backups and save just the C:\users folder will I be saving all my personal data?? Photos, documents, desktop folders with personal data, email, etc.? Would it be best to partition my hard drive and put all personal data in a separate partition??

In the future I need to purchase a backup program that does incremental backups to avoid this issue. Is Macrium Reflect still highly recommended?

Would appreciate any comments and help. Thanks.

 

I have separate partitions for my Win 10 OS, apps (almost all of them portables), and data. This makes my periodic OS backup's faster and much more manageable in size.

I've never gone into earlier backup sets to remove partial data. Just too afraid I might run into 'integrity' problems if I need to restore. When I accumulate multiple full backup's, what I do is delete some of the middle sets - keeping the oldest one or two, maybe one set in the middle, and the last two or so - something like that.

 

My setup, which works quickly and doesn't require massive amounts of disk space, is to keep all my personal data - photos, documents etc - on a separate data partition. Only Windows and my apps are on the C drive. With that setup Macrium can do a full backup of the C drive to an external in no time - just a few minutes, but I do not use it at all for my data. i want my data files backed up in their native format rather than a format only readable by Macrium. There are endless options for data backup and it's better to use more than one as stuff like photos is irreplaceable if lost. I use three methods - the Windows built-in File History; WinRAR for on demand local backups of selected folders (not free but invaluable imo); and cloud storage available from my ISP. It has called for a lot of thought and experimentation to get to this point but I am totally confident that both my system and my data are 100% safe outside of a nuclear war

Turning to your situation I can't recommend deleting old backups just to save some disk space. Put your hand in your pocket and get a second external usb drive, keeping your present one in case the worst happens. You don't really need incremental backups though they are nice to have but although I'm pretty sure other free imaging programs such as Easeus do a good job, I can't personally recommend them as I haven't used them myself. I trust Macrium 100% and have purchased the paid version.

Of course there are other approaches to this problem but if you want to try mine I will try to to help you.

 

I never used Macrium Free, which by the way is going away. Make sure you have the program archived somewhere. I don't keep backups on the computer. I put them on an external hard drive.

 

@plodr

 

Sorry I missed that!

 

@ Earthling Sorry for the late response... having health problems. Okay, I'd like some advice from you about how to partition my C drive to keep Windows and my personal data in separate partitions. I'm intimidated and afraid to try it. Obviously I'll do a full backup before attempting this process. I'm confused by your comment: "I use three methods - the Windows built-in File History; WinRAR for on demand local backups of selected folders (not free but invaluable imo); and cloud storage available from my ISP." What is Windows built-in File History? I looked up WinRAR and read about it and I know what cloud storage is. What program do you suggest for making partitions? Thanks in advance.

 

I do understand your position and your limited experience and am not going to offer advice on separating system and data. While desirable it is not essential and not worth risking your system stability for. Anyway where would you store another image file if your external is full? So my advice is as it was before - get another external drive. Easy and safe solution.

 

I have three external hard drives and none have enough space to do a full backup. I'll have to take a chance and delete the older backups and then make a decision about partitioning the drive. Thanks anyway.

 

Yes, look over the images and remove older ones. I have 7 external portable hard drives and regularly do full images of four Windows 7 computers. When I see space is getting tight, I hook up one of the hard drives and clear out old images so I have more space. I now have 4 of the drives with space on them. I also list which drive I use so I don't keep putting images on the same drive. I'm careful to rotate because if one of the drives quits, then I still have images to use on the others.

 

I'm going to order another external drive because I don't have time right now to go thru the images on the current drives. I put labels on the drives with used and free space so I know at a glance how much room there is for backups. Thanks for your input. Take care.