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#41
Here is what I would do:
Differentiate in your mind between “backing up” your personal data and backing up Windows/applications. “Backing up” is a generic term, typically ill-defined.
Back up personal data WITHOUT using Macrium, Norton, Acronis, or any similar product. No clone, no image. Nothing of the kind. Just an outright copy as if you had used the mouse and dragged the files to another drive. Do this either with the mouse periodically or with any of several programs designed for that purpose specifically (Syncback, Synctoy, Free File Sync, Second Copy, etc). If you have 300 GB of personal data, you will need 300 GB of space on your external drive.
Back up Windows and applications with Macrium using an image, not a clone. Repeat, not a clone. They are different. If you, for whatever reason, can’t or won’t put your data on a separate partition, then this image (of C alone) WILL in fact include your data even though you may have backed it up separately as in the previous paragraph.
I assume you have read the Macrium tutorial on site and are aware that image files must be formally “restored” to make a drive bootable and are largely useless otherwise. Unrestored, they are just a file.
I’m guessing your personal data is more important to you than your Windows installation and programs. Imaging or cloning are NOT repeat NOT foolproof, whether full or incremental. For that reason, I would not trust imaging or cloning to be a highly reliable method of backing up personal data. Why would you want to ever put the complication of imaging or cloning between you and your data backup? That’s a rhetorical question. You seem highly desirous of high reliability and (near) certainty, so I don’t understand why you would bother with imaging for something very important to you. All imaging can do is save you time. The time needed to do a clean Windows installation and reinstall your programs. But it’s fallible.
Incrementals introduce another point of failure. More files, each reliant on another. Who needs that if you are interested in reliability?? That’s another rhetorical question.
The simplest and least complicated path for you is to probably leave your C drive as is, with data on it. Your image files will be huge but so what. Just buy a huge backup drive. Make an additional backup of personal data alone as mentioned above, using the mouse or a program designed to simply replicate folders.
That is NOT what I would do, but with your knowledge level and trepidation, it’s probably what you should do. Making a separate data partition may be something you would never actually accomplish, for whatever reason.
I don’t use external drives and have no idea about which WD is suitable for your purposes.
Decide how many images of C you would want to keep on hand and plan on at least 200 GB of space required for each. Then add in the total space occupied by your personal data. If your data is 300 GB and you want to keep 3 images, you would need a minimum of 300 plus 200 plus 200 plus 200 GB space on your backup drive. That’s 900 GB, bare minimum. I’d get a 2 GB drive to give me room to grow.
All I know about the programs included with external drives is that they are unremarkable and unnecessary. That’s all I need to know. I wouldn’t even install the software.
I don’t follow your statements about Norton and am not asking for clarification. I assume you want to use another product, so stop with Norton.
I suspect most or all of this has been suggested to you earlier in this thread, which I am not going to re-read.
I have little else to add. Perhaps nothing at all.
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