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im thinking about a backup strategy for the follow scenario:

W11 machine with 2 Disks:

onboard SSD 256 + some cheap HDD

the goal is to create in AUTOMATIC mode, a full booteable disk every sunday from SSD to HDD, that permits:

  • boot from the image (HDD) (in case of SSD fatal damage)
  • recover files and moving manually from HDD to SSD (in case of indesirable file changes)

i also admit more ideas of course.

regards

oso_togari
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    You should seriously consider a) multiple point-in-time backups instead of a single mirror, b) using multiple media (a good backup creates at least two copies on at least two different media) and c) creating off-line (capable) backups. Note that product recommendations are explicitly off-topic here. – Zac67 May 09 '22 at 12:44
  • thanks.....a) ??.................b) i think one backup is enough for my requirements..................c) off line means external repo? – oso_togari May 09 '22 at 13:21
  • Windows natively supports this via WIMs - please see this answer – JW0914 May 24 '22 at 12:02
  • thanks... i read your answer and i linked it....if i see that macrium gives me any problem i re-think it based on your comment, but i dont see clear if i need to image the other(non C:) partitions in order to have a booteable disk.....i think i have to create the structure the first time, right? – oso_togari May 24 '22 at 14:47
  • @oso_togari All Windows installs include a WinRE [Windows Recovery] partition that can be manually or automatically booted to, so in the context of a bootable image, that applies specifically to WinPE/WinRE only; you'd boot to WinRE to capture or apply the WIM/exported ESD to the OS partition in order to boot it (regardless of native versus third-party, this doesn't change). To back up the OS, you'd only capture the OS partition, with new images appended to it when you want to take another backup (see appended image example in previous linked to answer) – JW0914 May 25 '22 at 13:28
  • @oso_togari (Cont'd...) I'm biased against third party backup solutions simply because the WIM/ESD image format has no third-party equivalency for data integrity due to the parity built-in to the WIM/ESD format (this is why it's used to install Windows and boot WinRE/WinPE, it's why large businesses/institutions pay thousands of dollars for a System Center license to deploy Windows to tens to thousands of machines from a primary WIM, incl. how OEMs deploy Windows to new PCs/laptops), as the data within WIMs/ESDs is impossible to corrupt provided /CheckIntegrity /Verify is always used. – JW0914 May 25 '22 at 13:36
  • @oso_togari (Cont'd...) It's always seemed like the biggest hurdle for using Windows' native WIM/ESD imaging is users who are nervous using a terminal due to folks intentionally fear-mongering users who are unfamiliar with a terminal (this is only seen in Windows, as terminal usage is common place in all BSD/Linux/MacOS distros), when the reality is a command line program is always far simpler to use than a GUI program because it's help page is always locally available via /? / -help / -? which shows the required command structure and explains in detail how to use each parameter. – JW0914 May 25 '22 at 13:48

2 Answers2

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ok finally i see that macrium reflect free do the job and have a schedule even in the free version...

no need to restart and no interrupts the operation in the machine....so i managed the 2 objectives.

  • A backup every week
  • A ready to boot clone disk (only thing is change in BIOS the boot order)

i would like to do it without 3rd party tools, but anyway...

regards

oso_togari
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There are two objectives here :

  1. having a bootable clone ready to use at any moment
  2. data backup

These two objectives are usually better addressed separately, as the requirements are different. For instance a one week frequency can be acceptable for a clone, but less acceptable for data backup. You should then state what is your main objective.

PierU
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    thanks....the main must be the booteable clone – oso_togari May 09 '22 at 13:03
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    maybe a scheduled powershell job can do the work: wbadmin start backup-backup target: E:-include: C:-quiet-allCritical – oso_togari May 09 '22 at 13:18
  • @oso_togari wbadmin isn't the correct tool for natively backing up/having a bootable clone of the OS partition - a WIM captured/ESD exported via Dism is the only efficient way to natively do so. For a bootable ESD/WIM of the OS partition, /Bootable would be appended to the Dism /Capture-Image||/Export-Image command or WinRE would be booted to for applying the image to the OS partition. (Please don't double post comments unless the maximum characters have been reached; instead, please edit or copy/paste into a new comment & delete the old) – JW0914 May 24 '22 at 13:59
  • @PierU This isn't an answer, it's a comment. Both objectives can be accomplished via a single WIM/ESD (please see prior comment and linked to answer) – JW0914 May 24 '22 at 14:01
  • @JW0914 Yes sorry it was more a comment. A clone or an image is indeed also a backup, but assuming the primary objective is the backup (which is finally not the case here) there are IMO better solutions. – PierU May 29 '22 at 20:25
  • @PierU What better solutions do you believe exist? AFAIK, a better, more efficient means of imaging partitions in a format immune to corruption, with parity, and the same or better compression ratios of ESDs/WIMs simply does not exist natively outside of WIMs/ESDs. I've never come across any third-party solutions able to match the WIM/ESD format, as a third-party would need to be on par with the compression rates of Max [WIM] and Recovery [ESD], have a manner within the image itself for data parity, and only use tools natively contained within WinPE (a primary Windows boot environment) – JW0914 May 29 '22 at 20:54
  • @JW0914 I mean a solution that is dedicated to backups, with file versioning and so on, rather than a solution based on images. – PierU May 30 '22 at 06:35
  • @PierU WIMs/ESDs are smart compression file formats and are differential versioning backups after the base image is captured; newly appended images utilize the same copy of unchanged files contained within the image from the previous image(s) (hash verified), allowing for an image to remain small in relation to the data within (example in this answer). Windows natively incorporates GUI file versioning via File History and System Restore, accessed in Properties → Previous Versions – JW0914 May 30 '22 at 10:54