Win 7 System Images - incremental or not?

[hw360]

hw360,

Older files are moved into Shadow storage on the backup drive.

If that gets borked - and it may - then you only have the most recent image remaining.

That's what I guessed. Thanks for confirming.

 

[hw360]

mjf, thanks for sharing your experience.

I'd like to know more about Windows 7 System Image, because I recently lost a hard disk partition and my old image backup did not work in my case. If I knew the limitations about backup software, I could have done a better backup.

 

[SIW2]

You're welcome.

I had a look at win sys img a long time ago - during the beta's.

Interesting - but decided it wasn't suitable.

Number of obvious potential problems - if it loses track of the image - there is no way of actually clicking on the image and forcing the gui to pick it up - as you can with 3rd party apps.

Succeeded in mounting the vhd, imaging that with a 3rd party app. - then restored the 3rd party app. image to a smaller drive.

It can be done - but depends on being able to access the required tools - not so easy if you can't boot in.

Restoring to a drive with a different partition structure is a touch inconvenient.

You may have repartitioned since the image - or you may want to image the o/s partition to another drive - ok if it's unallocated - not so good if you have other partitions on there.

You don't get those limitations with 3rd party apps.

 

[mjf]

My latest tests shows: SIW2 is right!

The Windows 7 System Image is incremental. It's not visible from Windows Backup & Restore application, it's visible if you boot from Recovery CD.

Look at the test I carried out.
Using "Create System Image" you only have access to one image. The current image is the latest image. You can wipe shadow storage and still have access to the latest image. This is not incremental imaging or differential imaging as I understand it. If it was wiping shadow storage would only leave the base image.

However, shadow storage clearly plays an important role in the imaging process.

See here for example for a definition of incremental & differential
Difference between: Full, Differential, and Incremental Backup | Backup

 

[kado897]

hw360,

Older files are moved into Shadow storage on the backup drive.

If that gets borked - and it may - then you only have the most recent image remaining.

That's what I guessed. Thanks for confirming.

That explains why it writes an RP to the backup drive even though you have SR turned off for the drive.

 

[mjf]

hw360,

Older files are moved into Shadow storage on the backup drive.

If that gets borked - and it may - then you only have the most recent image remaining.

That's what I guessed. Thanks for confirming.

That explains why it writes an RP to the backup drive even though you have SR turned off for the drive.

What's an RP and an SR?
Shadow protection may be turned off but the partition the image is stored on uses shadow storage for imaging. That's the only conclusion I draw.

So can I access older image files from shadow storage?

 

[kado897]

RP - Restore Point.
SR - System Recovery.

 

[mjf]

Thanks for the acronym description.
The thread was about imaging and I was more interested in an opinion on the 2nd question - again in the context of imaging. Not restore points.

 

[Frozenthunder]

How do you guys get the incremental feature work anyway? Are there any special things you must do? Because for me it's not incremental at all (even the normal folder only backup isn't). So maybe I'm just doing something wrong?

 

[larrymcg]

Since the imaging approach seems incredibly complicated, and there are many (conflicting?) answers to the original question, I'm going with simplification. My backups do not generate an image (just file backups). When I want to do an image I rename the previous one and then manually request a new image. They take a while to do (since each is a full or base image) but there are always big periods in a day when the PC has nothing else to do anyway.

I also figure I only really need 2 images: a relatively old one (one or two months old) and a new one. I'm thinking I can restore from either one and then use the file backups to get up to date.

--Larry

 

[SIW2]

Yes, a lot of people are not quite sure what win sys img is doing - both during backup and restore.

Use whatever method and whatever program works for you - and you feel comfortable with.

 

[kado897]

You might also consider imaging after "Patch Tuesday" so you don't have too many updates to apply.

 

[Frozenthunder]

Since the imaging approach seems incredibly complicated, and there are many (conflicting?) answers to the original question, I'm going with simplification. My backups do not generate an image (just file backups). When I want to do an image I rename the previous one and then manually request a new image. They take a while to do (since each is a full or base image) but there are always big periods in a day when the PC has nothing else to do anyway.

I also figure I only really need 2 images: a relatively old one (one or two months old) and a new one. I'm thinking I can restore from either one and then use the file backups to get up to date.

--Larry

But the problem with such strategy is the HDD lifetime. I mean it's not good if you write many TBs on your external HDD monthly. I'd rather do incremental/differential image. I try use my external HDD as less as possible because I want it to survive many years.

 

[whs]

Since the imaging approach seems incredibly complicated, and there are many (conflicting?) answers to the original question, I'm going with simplification. My backups do not generate an image (just file backups). When I want to do an image I rename the previous one and then manually request a new image. They take a while to do (since each is a full or base image) but there are always big periods in a day when the PC has nothing else to do anyway.

I also figure I only really need 2 images: a relatively old one (one or two months old) and a new one. I'm thinking I can restore from either one and then use the file backups to get up to date.

--Larry

But the problem with such strategy is the HDD lifetime. I mean it's not good if you write many TBs on your external HDD monthly. I'd rather do incremental/differential image. I try use my external HDD as less as possible because I want it to survive many years.

I think you imply 2 problems:

1. One should always have at least 2 external disks for every PC and alternate the images - just in case one disk breaks (which they rarely do).

2. If you have many GBs of stuff, most of it is data. That should be seperated from the OS into a data partition. Then you can image the system (which is usually between 20 and 40GB in size) and backup the data with a sync program.

The system images will be between 11 and 22GBs and you should keep many (I always keep at least 25 images). The data sync moves very little data around (just what you altered since the last sync) and should not be stressful for any disk.

 

[SIW2]

25 images ?

That's being careful. LOL

 

[Frozenthunder]

Since the imaging approach seems incredibly complicated, and there are many (conflicting?) answers to the original question, I'm going with simplification. My backups do not generate an image (just file backups). When I want to do an image I rename the previous one and then manually request a new image. They take a while to do (since each is a full or base image) but there are always big periods in a day when the PC has nothing else to do anyway.

I also figure I only really need 2 images: a relatively old one (one or two months old) and a new one. I'm thinking I can restore from either one and then use the file backups to get up to date.

--Larry

But the problem with such strategy is the HDD lifetime. I mean it's not good if you write many TBs on your external HDD monthly. I'd rather do incremental/differential image. I try use my external HDD as less as possible because I want it to survive many years.

I think you imply 2 problems:

1. One should always have at least 2 external disks for every PC and alternate the images - just in case one disk breaks (which they rarely do).

2. If you have many GBs of stuff, most of it is data. That should be seperated from the OS into a data partition. Then you can image the system (which is usually between 20 and 40GB in size) and backup the data with a sync program.

The system images will be between 11 and 22GBs and you should keep many (I always keep at least 25 images). The data sync moves very little data around (just what you altered since the last sync) and should not be stressful for any disk.

Then how do I tell Windows to save User- and ProgramDatafolder on another partition and not on my C:? because I would like to sync appdata and such too. My data like music, videos, pictures, documents actually doesn't change often. I never get new songs or videos or such. So most data which changes or grows is in Appdata folder and Programdata folder (found out that I could make some programs save data I record in different folders, so Programdata wouldn't be that big anymore).

Just found out that only my Program files folder is 68GB big, I got many many programs and games and such. 158GB is the used space in total, over 100GB is Windows+Programfiles+Programdata together. So each image would be at least 100GB and the seperate personal data like videos and such is only 50GB. So I'm not sure if it's worth it to create another partition on which I put only videos, music, pictures, documents and such, since I'm more the type of person which has alot of programs. Each person is individual

 

[whs]

1. Appdata does not have a Location tab in Properties. But the 4 folders inside Appdata have a location tab and can be moved easily.

2. Programs you can direct to any folder during the installation. Moving the program files in hindsight is a bit more tricky but can be done: How to Move the Program Files and User Folders in Windows 7 to a Different Drive

 

[Frozenthunder]

Would like to move programdata too. Programs + Windows in 1 image would be nice so then I don't have to reinstall.

 

[mjf]

Yes, a lot of people are not quite sure what win sys img is doing - both during backup and restore.

Apart from within Microsoft do you know anyone who does?
Better still do you have any solid technical references you can point people to?
Apart from general stuff like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHD_%28file_format%29

 

[whs]

Would like to move programdata too. Programs + Windows in 1 image would be nice so then I don't have to reinstall.

Here is a suggestion how to do that but I have not tried that myself:

rmdir "C:\ProgramData" /S /Q
mklink /J "C:\ProgramData" "D:\ProgramData"

Reference: http://tuts4tech.net/2009/08/05/win...m-files-directories-to-a-different-partition/