System Backup with AOMEI

see comments in bold

Nasty7 said:

I asked if I needed to use the Clone function if I was planning on using it later to put on an SSD? Simple question, perhaps I asked it wrong?


I don't use Aomei, but as far as I know, it is similar to Macrium, which I do use.

With Macrium, you could do either of the following:

Clone directly from the HDD to the SSD. The SSD would be immediately bootable and fully useable. There would be no interim state, such as a "system backup" file. A clone is simply a real time copy of a working system to another known good working drive.

Make an "image" of the HDD installation. That creates a file. Save that file on some other drive. Later "restore" that image file to the SSD. Without the restore, the image file isn't of much use and is not bootable.

Either method would serve the same purpose of moving an existing installation from one drive to another. Either can fail.

The terms "clone" and "image" are sometimes used carelessly and/or interchangeably, but they are two entirely different processes, each of which is most suitable for a particular purpose.



Now that I have a "System Backup" will I be able to use that for a new drive, going from an HDD to an SSD? If not then I got to start all over and get that Clone done!

I'm not sure what Aomei or you mean by "system backup", but I'd assume that means you created an image file and saved it to some other drive and are now wondering if you can somehow put that backup on an SSD. If you in fact created an image file (not a clone), yes, you can "use that for a new drive", but that image file must be formally "restored" to be bootable. You can't just copy it to the SSD and boot from it.

Also, can I use a Clone as a System Backup also. Perhaps it is a longer process or something, don't know, don't care? I say "don't care" because my only backup drive is a 128GB USB 3.0, but good enough for now. So as you see, I need to use this for a backup, but also want to be able to use it to install to new SSD.



An image file normally takes up about half the occupied space on the partitions that it represents. If your C drive is 500 GB and 150 of that is occupied, an image of C would take up about 75 GB. So your 128 GB backup drive would likely hold only 1 image file. I'd try to use a larger internal or external if possible.

Clones can be used as system backups, but they are not generally regarded as the best method for that purpose.

Clones are most often attempted when you have a good working system and simply want to move it to another hard drive, whether HDD or SSD.

Images are better suited for a system backup. You can make a new one in a few minutes--rarely more than 30 minutes. You can keep as many as you have space for, perhaps dating back years. You can restore them and be back up and running within 30 minutes to an hour. Since you can make new ones quickly, they aren't like to be very stale. Since they take up a relatively small space, you can usually store a dozen or more on a 1 TB drive. An image does not tie up an entire drive---the image file is just another file like any other on the drive and can be moved around or copied at will. Image files are best suited for "disaster recovery" and are about as good a "backup" as you can get for a Windows system.

If you want to backup personal files, you could use an image, but an ordinary file by file backup program is better suited.

All of the above based on Macrium, but I'm pretty sure the ideas would also apply to Aomei, perhaps with different terminology. Macrium images have an mrimg extension. Aomei would use something else.

Some say that imaging is more reliable than cloning. Regardless, don't get yourself in a position where you MUST rely on either of them as both can fail. They are simply time-savers that usually work.

Imaging and cloning both backup the disk byte-by-byte so the result is an exact copy of the original disk. Since the MBR is on the disk, it will be copied along with everything else. The major difference between cloning and imaging is that a clone is written directly to another disk and the 2nd disk is immediately bootable whereas an image is saved as a file and needs to be restored from that file to another disk in order for that disk to be bootable. Images can be compressed in order to make the resulting file smaller for storage purposes.

When you create a system image, always make sure you create a boot disk (pretty much all backup programs have this capability) which will allow you to boot and run the restore program to restore the image in case of catastrophic failure where the computer can't boot from it's internal disk.

Oldhead said:

I use Aomei for all my monthly full system backups,
Aomei adds the separate (partition with MBR) included with all system backups , so as a follow up to previous answer ,could someone chime in and expand upon???
I was under the impression that ,if the (MBR) was included with your backup ,there would be no issue ,with restoring this file backup to any new HDD or SSD.
Cheers

I assume you are referring to the "System Reserved" partition typically found on Windows 7 machine.

I'd guess Aomei handles it much like Macrium.

With Macrium, you can choose to "Create an image of the partitions necessary to back up and restore Windows". If you tick that choice, both C and System Reserved should be included in your image. When you restore, both of those partitions would be restored.

Or you can choose the specific partitions you want manually. You could manually instruct Macrium to make one image containing both System Reserved and C. Or you could instruct Macrium to make separate images of each of those partitions.

The point is that to restore Windows, you MUST have an image of BOTH C and System Reserved (or whatever partition is marked as "system" when you view Windows Disk Management).

I've configured my Windows installation so that C is also my "system" partition. I don't have a System Reserved partition. So, C is the only partition I need to image.

Regarding your statement "there would be no issue......". I'd never say that.

You can have issues when restoring for unknown reasons. Your bootable rescue disk may fail. Don't put all your faith in the process, particularly if you have never done a restore before and are not familiar with the menu choices you will see on-screen during the restore.

Imaging and cloning are quite different.

Imaging takes the data from the drive and places it on a new drive - which can be a smaller drive as long as the data fits.

Cloning makes copies of all tracks of that drive and copies them to another drive which must be at least equal size.

You are welcome. Ask any question. I will try to answer. My main problem are my eyes. At age of nearly 80 I have a hard time seeing things. And my macular degeneration cannot be corrected with glasses. But up to now I have always managed - somehow.