Leo, you should have a million subscribers. I've been following you for years and have benefitted from your advice and suggestions. It's nice to have a trustworthy source on the internet. That's you!
There is an answer for the best of both worlds. For your OS drive, run 2 physical drives in raid 1, which is mirrored. That takes care of physical drive crashes. If one fails you are still humming along Then you can also back up images to an external drive (or another internal drive). I back up mine to a PiNAS using Open Media Vault.
Two points: 1) If you choose the cloning route, then you are exposing yourself to a slight risk of losing everything. How? If while you are performing the cloning operation, your source drive dies, then you have no complete backup (no complete clone) from which to recover. 2) Will you really open your computer case, each time you make a clone? If you leave your source drive and your destination drive connected all of the time, then if you get hit with a virus, ransomware, etc, you could lose the data on both drives. And if you get hit with something nasty (even a power surge), can you be sure it affected only your source drive? Will you feel comfortable with your cloned drive, not knowing 100% whether or not it was impacted, too? The effort of opening your computer's case, plugging in the cables to do a cloning operation, and then unplugging that cloned drive, and closing your computer case, just seems like something that few people would actually do. They would probably just leave the cloned drive plugged in, which leaves you open to what I described above. As our host pointed out... with a traditional backup, you can have that image stored on an external USB drive. That makes it as simple as can be to plug in and unplug for each backup. You can even make a copy of that USB drive to another USB drive, and store that one with a friend or neighbor, which will protect you from losing your data in a burglary or fire. And by performing a backup (instead of a clone), you can encrypt and password protect your data (so that your friend or neighbor) cannot see your data.
I think there are two distinct factors here. Prevention of long term data loss, and prevention of downtime. If someone is concerned about downtime, and puts an additional harddrive into the machine, then I think going with a RAID 1 might actually be the better option, since downtime might be then prevented all together (or at least delayed to a more convienient time to swap the failed drive) Of course that is definetely no "data backup" in any way, shape or form, making additional backups is a must.
I use external HDDs and keep 4 separate full image backups for my C: drive and 4 chains of full w/six incrementals for the data drive. I also clone the data drive (all my critical data) onto an identical external (NvME) SSD once a month for a fast swap in case of the internal drive failing. My external HDDs are also destinations for my iOS backups using a great piece of software called iMazing (which does a lot more than just backups and restores to/from your iOS devices).
Thank you Leo. Very clear and concise explanation of the two approaches. If it is possible, could you cover restoring a EaseUS disk image? Thanks again for your videos!
I'm not a fan of this method either even though like he said it is theoretically possible to do it that way. But I have a different take on it. If you maintain your computer properly than there is no need for a bootable backup of your main drive. Just save your files to an external source so you don't lose those. It's been a very long time since I crashed my computer. Modern windows is far more robust than the days of windows 98. So if you are regularly updating everything and making sure you don't accidentally install malware than you should be good indefinitely. On top of that, if by some crazy change something does fail it really doesn't take that long to reinstall everything, especially with a modern ssd and a modern processor.
Upon my build once up and running I will create a cloned second drive. Once done I remove that drive, this is only for a worst case scenario to quickly get back up and running. Then I would use a backup plan constantly on a second drive in system or and a dedicated NAS. I will also keep archives in several locations separate from main unit of all my data. Also if needed if drive is still good I can just do a clean install with a fresh copy of windows, either way I am covered. It's like you have to have a failsafe for the failsafe. Windows and apps are always changing. So data is key, however on the long-term side of things some of your data file types may have to change or convert to a new format. Anything can happen at anytime, nothing is guaranteed or permanent. Even physical copies! Whether it be flood, fire, malware, drive failure, natural disasters, etc. It can and will happen.
I prefer weekly cloning of my system drive. I bought EaseUS Todo for this task. A couple of issues. 1 - The cloning process changed my SOURCE drive letters for some unknown reason. 2- How can I schedule weekly cloning?
The same size thing does not need to Apply With Acronis True Image or Home protect you only need a drive that's got still good freespace it can be smaller along you have free space that's like 500 gB or more For example a 2TB drive can Be cloned to a 1TB Drive if 200 GB is Used you Cloning the used space not free space you using File base cloning not sector cloning
Great videos Leo : my second internal 1 Tb 2.5 sata hard drive is nearly full and I want to copy files etc. to a new 2.5 sata 2, Tb. and fit into my Intel NUC. ( note : this drive does not contain my Win. 10 operating system) What do you recomend clone or image and what is the easist software to use. Hope you can help, thanks
I’ve been using two Windows 10 utilities, File History for backing up files and System Image to clone my OS files. But I’ve never heard of anyone else using these utilities, everyone uses third party. Is there a downside to the native Windows ones I’m using?
File History is great when used in addition to a system image backup. I strongly dislike Windows image backup because it give you ZERO control over what's going on, is very inflexible, and - this is the capper - Microsoft has said they're no longer supporting it and we should use something else. :-)
@@askleonotenboom appreciate the help. I’ve turned off System restore with shadow copies etc because of a user imposed space limit Error. Is that ok or is it better to leave System restore on?
I only use Windows code, Why use external software ? My backups are fully automatic. I back up the C drive (Win 10 Pro) as a Virtual Drive to an iSCSI share over 10Gbit networking. The machine hosting the share copies this to another host by a dedicated ethernet link. This host in turn copies to an external USB drive. I use 12TB drives and purge the oldest files automatically when 80 percent full. This means I have about 3x 25 individual backups any of which can be run in seconds in Hyper-V without even having to restore them.
Personally I would not because most Raid controllers write to the disk in a proprietary format. So you could not, for example, take one of the drives to another machine and expect it to be read, UNLESS that machine has the EXACT same Raid controller.
@@askleonotenboomwhen you say different computer do you mean like a usb stick emergency disk to boot from this stick, then restore from within the stick somehow picking your restore image from someplace?
@@maxxsee Install EaseUS on a different, working computer. On that computer create an EaseUS emergency USB stick. Take that USB stick to the computer with a problem. Boot that computer from the USB stick, and EaseUS will run automatically. You can then use it to restore a backup image to the computer's hard disk.
You can, but you needn’t.
Leo, you should have a million subscribers. I've been following you for years and have benefitted from your advice and suggestions. It's nice to have a trustworthy source on the internet. That's you!
There is an answer for the best of both worlds.
For your OS drive, run 2 physical drives in raid 1, which is mirrored.
That takes care of physical drive crashes. If one fails you are still humming along
Then you can also back up images to an external drive (or another internal drive).
I back up mine to a PiNAS using Open Media Vault.
Two points:
1) If you choose the cloning route, then you are exposing yourself to a slight risk of losing everything. How?
If while you are performing the cloning operation, your source drive dies, then you have no complete backup (no complete clone) from which to recover.
2) Will you really open your computer case, each time you make a clone?
If you leave your source drive and your destination drive connected all of the time, then if you get hit with a virus, ransomware, etc, you could lose the data on both drives.
And if you get hit with something nasty (even a power surge), can you be sure it affected only your source drive? Will you feel comfortable with your cloned drive, not knowing 100% whether or not it was impacted, too?
The effort of opening your computer's case, plugging in the cables to do a cloning operation, and then unplugging that cloned drive, and closing your computer case, just seems like something that few people would actually do. They would probably just leave the cloned drive plugged in, which leaves you open to what I described above.
As our host pointed out... with a traditional backup, you can have that image stored on an external USB drive. That makes it as simple as can be to plug in and unplug for each backup. You can even make a copy of that USB drive to another USB drive, and store that one with a friend or neighbor, which will protect you from losing your data in a burglary or fire. And by performing a backup (instead of a clone), you can encrypt and password protect your data (so that your friend or neighbor) cannot see your data.
I think there are two distinct factors here. Prevention of long term data loss, and prevention of downtime. If someone is concerned about downtime, and puts an additional harddrive into the machine, then I think going with a RAID 1 might actually be the better option, since downtime might be then prevented all together (or at least delayed to a more convienient time to swap the failed drive)
Of course that is definetely no "data backup" in any way, shape or form, making additional backups is a must.
I use external HDDs and keep 4 separate full image backups for my C: drive and 4 chains of full w/six incrementals for the data drive. I also clone the data drive (all my critical data) onto an identical external (NvME) SSD once a month for a fast swap in case of the internal drive failing. My external HDDs are also destinations for my iOS backups using a great piece of software called iMazing (which does a lot more than just backups and restores to/from your iOS devices).
Thank you Leo. Very clear and concise explanation of the two approaches. If it is possible, could you cover restoring a EaseUS disk image? Thanks again for your videos!
I'm not a fan of this method either even though like he said it is theoretically possible to do it that way. But I have a different take on it. If you maintain your computer properly than there is no need for a bootable backup of your main drive. Just save your files to an external source so you don't lose those. It's been a very long time since I crashed my computer. Modern windows is far more robust than the days of windows 98. So if you are regularly updating everything and making sure you don't accidentally install malware than you should be good indefinitely. On top of that, if by some crazy change something does fail it really doesn't take that long to reinstall everything, especially with a modern ssd and a modern processor.
Upon my build once up and running I will create a cloned second drive. Once done I remove that drive, this is only for a worst case scenario to quickly get back up and running. Then I would use a backup plan constantly on a second drive in system or and a dedicated NAS.
I will also keep archives in several locations separate from main unit of all my data. Also if needed if drive is still good I can just do a clean install with a fresh copy of windows, either way I am covered. It's like you have to have a failsafe for the failsafe. Windows and apps are always changing. So data is key, however on the long-term side of things some of your data file types may have to change or convert to a new format.
Anything can happen at anytime, nothing is guaranteed or permanent. Even physical copies! Whether it be flood, fire, malware, drive failure, natural disasters, etc. It can and will happen.
I prefer weekly cloning of my system drive. I bought EaseUS Todo for this task. A couple of issues. 1 - The cloning process changed my SOURCE drive letters for some unknown reason. 2- How can I schedule weekly cloning?
Leo, you should have way more than 55,000 subscribers..
The other thing you can Do is get a Synology Nas and do full image Backups too
The same size thing does not need to Apply With Acronis True Image or Home protect you only need a drive that's got still good freespace it can be smaller along you have free space that's like 500 gB or more For example a 2TB drive can Be cloned to a 1TB Drive if 200 GB is Used you Cloning the used space not free space you using File base cloning not sector cloning
Great videos Leo : my second internal 1 Tb 2.5 sata hard drive
is nearly full and I want to copy files etc. to a new 2.5 sata 2, Tb.
and fit into my Intel NUC.
( note : this drive does not contain my Win. 10 operating system)
What do you recomend clone or image and what is the easist software
to use. Hope you can help, thanks
Is the image back up the same size as a full dish back up? I would think it would have to be.
It's typically somewhat smaller, as the backup tool compresses the data.
I’ve been using two Windows 10 utilities, File History for backing up files and System Image to clone my OS files. But I’ve never heard of anyone else using these utilities, everyone uses third party. Is there a downside to the native Windows ones I’m using?
File History is great when used in addition to a system image backup. I strongly dislike Windows image backup because it give you ZERO control over what's going on, is very inflexible, and - this is the capper - Microsoft has said they're no longer supporting it and we should use something else. :-)
@@askleonotenboom appreciate the help. I’ve turned off System restore with shadow copies etc because of a user imposed space limit Error. Is that ok or is it better to leave System restore on?
@@cgsather3309 System restore is something else entirely, and I have thoughts: askleo.com/why_i_dont_like_system_restore/
I only use Windows code, Why use external software ? My backups are fully automatic.
I back up the C drive (Win 10 Pro) as a Virtual Drive to an iSCSI share over 10Gbit networking. The machine hosting the share copies this to another host by a dedicated ethernet link. This host in turn copies to an external USB drive. I use 12TB drives and purge the oldest files automatically when 80 percent full. This means I have about 3x 25 individual backups any of which can be run in seconds in Hyper-V without even having to restore them.
If you just want a cloned drive, why not just set up a RAID 1 system?
Personally I would not because most Raid controllers write to the disk in a proprietary format. So you could not, for example, take one of the drives to another machine and expect it to be read, UNLESS that machine has the EXACT same Raid controller.
@@askleonotenboomGreat point..
Thanks Leo. How to restore easeus image backup if os corrupt and unable to boot? We need to get to easeus software to restore it's image, right?
Create an easeus emergency disk on a different computer, and then boot the problematic computer from that.
@@askleonotenboomwhen you say different computer do you mean like a usb stick emergency disk to boot from this stick, then restore from within the stick somehow picking your restore image from someplace?
@@maxxsee Install EaseUS on a different, working computer. On that computer create an EaseUS emergency USB stick. Take that USB stick to the computer with a problem. Boot that computer from the USB stick, and EaseUS will run automatically. You can then use it to restore a backup image to the computer's hard disk.
@@askleonotenboom Thanks. Make sure to repent and find Jesus for salvation if haven't. I was saved 2 years ago changed overnight.
IF I HAVE A LOT OF SOFTWARE INSTALLED AND VIDEO EDITING AND COLOR PROJECTS, A CLONE IS PERFECT BECOSE CLIENT DON'T HAVE TO WAIT EVER :)