Backing Up On Windows [merged]

[Roxy.music]

I use WinClone to backup my Bootcamp partition, if that’s of use (I’m assuming here you’re talking about running Win10 on a mac)

I could not do anything with Winclone nothing worked. It is all fine and dandy if everything goes to plan.But from what i hear a lot of people have problems with it.Tim should do videos of the problems people have with it rather than the basic stuff you can do with it.Which is straight forward.

 

[Roxy.music]

Thank you all for your replies!

I should have been clear that I'm wanting to backup my Windows 10 Pro PC which is not running on Mac hardware.

I wish I could use Apple's Time Machine as I'm very trusting of Apple with my data/privacy, but it's obviously only available for Mac hardware. Is there some kind of equivalent to this on Windows 10?

I really want to backup soon, but I don't know which backup app/company I can trust with my data... 😥 😥 😥

Try this to get Windows 10 on your 2011 Mac Mini.

 

[BeautifulWoman_1984]

Try this to get Windows 10 on your 2011 Mac Mini.

Thanks for your reply RoxyMusic, but I'm not sure how this helps me because I'm just looking for the best backup App for Windows 10?

 

[Roxy.music]

Thanks for your reply RoxyMusic, but I'm not sure how this helps me because I'm just looking for the best backup App for Windows 10?

Ii thought this was the same forum.I saw another of your posts about you putting Windows 10 on your 2011 Mac Mini

 

[BeautifulWoman_1984]

Oh no this is a completely different question.

I just want to know which backup App to use for my Windows 10 PC.

 

[Roxy.music]

Oh no this is a completely different question.

I just want to know which backup App to use for my Windows 10 PC.

Acronis True Image Best one for Windows
Look on eBay for it cheap.

It does so much more.

 

[maflynn]

I picked up a new external drive and I was debating on what application to use for backups, especially since Acronis is on a subscription. In the end I just used wrote a couple of robocopy scripts to copy what I want to the external drive.

I use robocopy at work to sync up different file servers, and it was a natural option. I backup my c:\users\<my account> with an exclusion of the OneDrive directory and my D drive where my pictures and lightroom library exist). In both cases I exclude system/hidden files.

I'll set up a scheduler task and run the script weekly (my LR library doesn't change terribly often) and that will give me an up to date backup of my data.

 

[BeautifulWoman_1984]

Acronis True Image Best one for Windows
Look on eBay for it cheap.

It does so much more.

Thank you for your reply Roxy!

Does anyone else have experience with Acronis???

My big concern is finding a trustworthy company as whichever backup App I choose will have access to all of my files... 😢 😢 😢

 

[Boyd01]

I used Acronis for many years on my Windows PC and it worked well. They have an option to use their "cloud", but you don't need to do that and don't need to give the company access to your files.

I have now stopped using my Windows PC and moved everything to a Windows 10 virtual machine on my 2018 Mini. No need for Windows backup software now, Time Machine backs everything up under MacOS and I also have Carbon Copy clones and BackBlaze cloud backups.

 

[BeautifulWoman_1984]

I used Acronis for many years on my Windows PC and it worked well. They have an option to use their "cloud", but you don't need to do that and don't need to give the company access to your files.

I have now stopped using my Windows PC and moved everything to a Windows 10 virtual machine on my 2018 Mini. No need for Windows backup software now, Time Machine backs everything up under MacOS and I also have Carbon Copy clones and BackBlaze cloud backups.

Thank you for your reply Boyd!

I'll look into Acronis some more.

I just wish that there was a "Time Machine equivalent" for Windows because Time Machine is amazingly good...

 

[Boyd01]

Well, if you run Windows in a virtual machine on your Mac, then you can use Time Machine.

 

[maflynn]

Well, if you run Windows in a virtual machine on your Mac, then you can use Time Machine.

I wouldn't recommend this simply, because any minor file change to the VM will trigger the entire VM container to be backed up, that is will be backed up hourly, and if you have a 50 to 70 GB VM, that will eat up your storage very quickly.

 

[theSeb]

Acronis True Image 2020

 

[Boyd01]

I wouldn't recommend this simply, because any minor file change to the VM will trigger the entire VM container to be backed up,

That is a good point. I was aware that it would be backing up a lot of data, but now that I look at my 5tb backup disk, it is starting to fill up so I have excluded the VM from Time Machine. It is still backed up with Carbon Copy, I have BackBlaze configured to back it up and there are also Parallels snapshots, so I should be covered.

But all of the files I create with Windows apps are stored on MacOS disks (which Parallels treats like network drives) so they will continue to be backed up with Time Machine.

 

[maflynn]

Acronis True Image 2020

Its now a subscription, there's better solutions other then needing to pay 25 dollars a year

 

[theSeb]

Oh. I didn't realise it's gone subscription. In that case Aomei Backupper Standard 4.

 

[grmlin]

Its now a subscription, there's better solutions other then needing to pay 25 dollars a year

You can still buy True Image. It's 60€ for a single computer, 90€ for 3... Retail versions should be cheaper

It's hidden below the subscriptions. I still didn't decide what to use and don't have a backup at all right now lol.

 

[warp9]

I know people beat the "backup" drum incessantly, but don't lose sight of the forest for the trees. Windows doesn't need to be backed up. It's just a collection of system files and programs and all of it can be easily reinstalled. It would be more trouble managing a backup solution than to just reinstall Windows. All you really want is to keep your personal files safe.

The simplest and safest solution is cloud sync. If your pc crashes, reinstall Windows and the cloud sync app. All your files go right back in place. No messing around with buggy shareware or buying yet another external drive. No complicated backup routines. No complicated restore routines.

Some will say that cloud sync is not backup but out of hundreds of millions of people using cloud services for over a decade, I've never heard of anybody losing data. Keeping a thumbdrive at a family members house is a good idea but that doesn't need to be done very often.

 

[grmlin]

Yeah, no.

A short story that happened some months ago. My sister, a teacher, called me in full panic mode. All her school related documents, which she stores in iCloud, were gone. Her iCloud drive was empty.
So I told her to look into her backup. Which she didn't have Luckily for her, Apple offers some sort of data recovery on the icloud website and I was able to restore (most) of the files. One of her kids managed to **** around in the icloud app on her iPhone...

One place is not good enough for valuable data. You absolutely need a backup of these files for that one time disaster strikes. You'll probably never need it of course. I, for example, never ever lost a hard drive before it was too late, but do I want to take any chances? Hell no.


Btw. Setting up my work computer definitely takes a while. And it needs my attention. A full backup is a press of a button and involves some time I can invest elsewhere. That's a huge difference.

 

[MacCheetah3]

With your mention of CCC, I’ll toss out Reflect Free Edition.

Macrium Reflect | Free 30-Day Trial

Macrium Reflect - Incredibly powerful software that allows you to create and schedule effective backups

www.macrium.com

Thus far, I’ve only used it for an exact drive clone, but it worked flawlessly.
— That is, I havemt looked into any other possible features.

 

[LeeW]

Windows doesn't need to be backed up. It's just a collection of system files and programs and all of it can be easily reinstalled. It would be more trouble managing a backup solution than to just reinstall Windows. All you really want is to keep your personal files safe.

No, well, depends. If you are a gamer with a few office docs and photos or a general home user then probably yes.

For someone like me that relies on it in a much greater way for work then the last thing I want to be doing is installing Windows from scratch.

Installing Windows only gets me an OS, what about all my software installs, configuration files, drivers, dependencies and so on? Once I Get Windows installed I am then looking at many hours of additional work to do all of that.

So I want the whole lot backed up so I can do a single restore and be back to the point immediately prior to the crash in the shortest time frame. That will apply to many on here.

 

[warp9]

No, well, depends. If you are a gamer with a few office docs and photos or a general home user then probably yes.

For someone like me that relies on it in a much greater way for work then the last thing I want to be doing is installing Windows from scratch.

Installing Windows only gets me an OS, what about all my software installs, configuration files, drivers, dependencies and so on? Once I Get Windows installed I am then looking at many hours of additional work to do all of that.

So I want the whole lot backed up so I can do a single restore and be back to the point immediately prior to the crash in the shortest time frame. That will apply to many on here.

In my experience, most people spend far more time messing around with backup solutions than they ever would reinstalling windows once a year (at the most). Finding good software, finding good hardware, dealing with things not working out as planned, etc. I can reinstall a full workstation with all apps in a couple hours but finding a decent backup solution can take days, if not weeks. It also doesn't last long because things change fast.

Anyways, the OP seems confused and fearful of anything not Time Machine and I don't blame her. Backup in Windows is a nightmare and I gave up on it years ago.

 

[LeeW]

I do my backups using Windows in-built backup, stored on a local NAS. Never had a single issue to be honest. Really comes down to how much you really need backups and how committed you are to finding a solution based on how important your files are and the effect of downtime on what you do.

Cloud is fine for the majority of home users to ensure their photos and word docs are backed up without needing to worry about Windows.

 

[warp9]

Luckily for her, Apple offers some sort of data recovery on the icloud website and I was able to restore (most) of the files.

So again, no lost data other than some unsaved work it sounds like. Icloud, Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive ALL offer massive redundancy and differential backups for cases just like this. It's why nobody loses data. I know people generally don't trust the cloud but I follow the evidence and I have never seen evidence of cloud data loss.

Regardless, having only one copy of important work files is foolish. When your job or company depends on that data, you keep several copies around even if it's 99.99% safe because it's a business asset. Even that 0.01% is worth replicating it elsewhere. Like LeeW, I have a NAS replicating my Dropbox folder even though I have never used it and I never expect to.

 

[grmlin]

So again, no lost data other than some unsaved work it sounds like. Icloud, Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive ALL offer massive redundancy and differential backups for cases just like this. It's why nobody loses data. I know people generally don't trust the cloud but I follow the evidence and I have never seen evidence of cloud data loss.

Regardless, having only one copy of important work files is foolish. When your job or company depends on that data, you keep several copies around even if it's 99.99% safe because it's a business asset. Even that 0.01% is worth replicating it elsewhere. Like LeeW, I have a NAS replicating my Dropbox folder even though I have never used it and I never expect to.

So you have a backup That's what I'm talking about.

I want a backup of my whole work system, just because it saves me so much time if anything happens to my work machine.