Have I helped or have I confused the matter?
karl
Definitely helped. I guess with my 70+GB of data the system image is bound to be large. I think I will only keep one image so as to not take up too much space on my external. I thought a 500GB external would be fine. My last one was 160GB so I thought 500GB would be plenty but I didn't account for the space the system image is taking.
Now I need to decide if I should stick with Windows for the system image or go to Macrium. It seems some here don't think Windows system image is reliable.
I had a computer fail last year (Win XP). I had my files backed up so I was able to move them to the new computer but if something like that happens again I'd like to be able to repair the computer. I made the system repair disks and the system recovery disks when I first got this computer. Although I think I read that one or both may be redundant if you restore using a system image. Hopefully I am covered.