![]() ![]() In some ways, for example, you can consider OneDrive and Dropbox as performing that kind of backup. Your safety net is then more like a sieve and might let some things fall through the net.įiles-and-folders backups have their place. Worse, you usually don’t find out until it’s too late. You could choose wrong and not back up something important. An image backup is a safety net without holes - it catches everything.Īnything less - commonly called a files-and-folders backup - means you’re making choices about what to back up. In my opinion, image backups are by far the most useful and the safest, because there’s no worry you’ve missed something. ![]() Many tools will do this to your specification, including some tools that also create image backups. ![]() For example, you could choose to back up only your data files, or only data files you consider important. Why an image instead of other approaches? When I say “back up everything,” I mean you should back up everything. When I discuss image backups unless I say otherwise I’m talking about the first: an image of the entire physical hard drive and everything on it. (#1 is unchecked and only one of the #2 checkboxes is checked.) 3 An image backup of only one of the partitions on the drive.An image backup of the entire physical hard drive.Note that each partition has its own checkbox (#2 in the image) indicating that it should be backed up, and the entire disk has a checkbox as well (#1), indicating that everything on it should be backed up.Īn image backup resulting from the choices could be: The larger box indicates the entire physical hard drive, and each of the three partitions are shown inside. For example, here’s what Macrium Reflect displays when choosing what to back up. When creating a backup image, you’ll usually be offered a choice. Three separate “disks” on one physical disk drive. C: - the partition containing what we see as the computer’s C: drive when Windows is running.579MB NTFS - an administrative partition.In the example above, the single 100GB hard disk is divided into three partitions: More accurately, a single physical hard drive or disk can be organized into what looks like several disks, called logical disks or partitions. Put as confusingly as possible, a disk can have more than one disk on it. Unfortunately, an image of a disk can be one of two separate things: an entire hard drive, or a single partition.Ĭonsider this hard drive displayed in the Windows Disk Management tool. If, for some reason, the physical layout of the data and free space were important - perhaps in data recovery or forensic situations - then a clone might be better. Thus a backup of a 1 terabyte drive would be about 1 terabyte, regardless of how much data was on the drive.įor backing up, we only care about the data, so an image is our focus. If your 1 terabyte drive has 100 megabytes of data, an image would contain 100 megabytes (before any compression).Ī clone of a disk also contains whatever’s in the “unused” space. The terms image and clone are often used interchangeably, and their definitions often reversed.Īs I use it, 2 an image of a disk contains all the data on the disk. 1Ī backup image’s goal is simple: to be able to be copied back to a hard drive - perhaps a repaired or replacement drive - and restore everything to the state it was in when the backup was created. ![]() Image backups can generally only be read by the tools that create them. Most save the image as a single file, but some may use a folder of files. They carefully copy everything to a location you’ve specified. You can create image backups using Windows’s built-in tool, or third-party tools like Macrium Reflect, EaseUS Todo, or others. This includes boot information, the operating system (Windows), the installed applications, the settings and configuration changes you’ve made, and, of course, all of your data. image is everythingĪn image is a copy of all the data on your hard disk. By backing up entire hard disk images, you’re guaranteed not to overlook something important. (A clone includes the unused space as well.) Images can be made of partitions or entire hard disks. An image backup contains all the data on a disk. ![]()
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