Macrium Reflect - cloning Windows 10

[High1]

Hello

A question concerning Macrium Reflect. I have launched the software and selected the Windows option to clone Windows in case I ever need to recover it (attached).

This then loads another dialogue box. Am I right in saying that it is expecting a huge amount of Gbs in CDs to image Windows?

I am not too sure if I am going about things the right way.

Many thanks

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[BC_Programmer]

It will "span" across multiple CD's DVDs, and will prompt you to insert another after each one until you have them all.

298GB GB's would require about 470 CDs and around 64 DVDs.

The idea of a backup image is to save the image to a larger external hard drive.

[Geek-9pm]

Maximum Reflect is a great program. It needs you to pay attention.

Short answer:
Do not try to clone to CDs or DVDs. Carve that in stone.

Longer answer:
Here is what I do.
I have three or four 500 GB drives in my computer den. (One bit the dust.)
Using Maximum Reflect I clone the whole drive roan external unit using USB. It has to reboot to do this. Or I use the CD made by Maximum Reflect.

Making a complete byte-for-byte copy of a drive is called making a clone.

When don the right sway, the new drive will boot the computer after I first mount in in the same slot used by the original drive.

I just had somebody ask me about this elsewhere. Apparently the clone has to be external to make an exact copy. If it is inside the case, windows 10 becomes jealous and bites the second drive and cripple sits ability to boot.

OK, the is not the technicality correct explanation ...
- but it is logically y correct.

Rule. Clone you whole drive to an equal external drive.
Then swap the drives and verify the clockworks. Keep the original drive in safe place. You might never need it. But keep it. Use the clone drive until the next time you would like to make a clone again.

Can you understand why I have three drives? 

Does that help any?   

[High1]

That's very helpful and perfectly understood. I like the part about Win 10 getting jealous 

Many thanks!

[VintronNZ]

As others have said it isn't practical to use cd's or dvd's to backup 296 gb of data. If you backed up to a 1TB usb drive you could fit 3 backups on the one drive. I'm not sure if Maximum Reflect does this.
Certainly Easeus Todo backup does. A tip is to use the password option on the backup.
This will stop cryptolocker should you ever have it encrypt your drive doing the same to the backups. Also todo allows you to save some backups and then over write others. For example  backup 3 times, then keep the first backup and then over write the 2 last backups. If you do use Easeus Todo backup make sure you make a recovery disk or pen drive from the program.
 

[artbuc]

Guess I will never fully understand the answer to this question - why clone instead of image?

[BC_Programmer]

Clone is for when you want to use the copy. if you want to upgrade your systems boot drive, you clone your existing one to a new one and then swap that new one in place of the old one.

Image is for when you want to back up a drive's contents, like make an image of your boot drive and save it.

I suppose a clone can also serve as a "backup" for a boot drive that you can recover by just swapping it in place, which seems to be the method Geek-9pm described.

[High1]

Thanks BC_Programmer

I meant to use the CD, when it has copied the engine-room of my PC tower, as a recovery-disk in case of system failure.

Thanks again.

[artbuc]

Clone is for when you want to use the copy. if you want to upgrade your systems boot drive, you clone your existing one to a new one and then swap that new one in place of the old one.

Image is for when you want to back up a drive's contents, like make an image of your boot drive and save it.

I suppose a clone can also serve as a "backup" for a boot drive that you can recover by just swapping it in place, which seems to be the method Geek-9pm described.

Or install your backup image onto a new drive. Seems like the biggest advantage for a clone is that it is a ready to go spare drive although it seems just as easy to install a bootable image as it is to swap out drives. Sorry for the hijack...won’t do it again.

[BC_Programmer]

Or install your backup image onto a new drive. Seems like the biggest advantage for a clone is that it is a ready to go spare drive although it seems just as easy to install a bootable image as it is to swap out drives. Sorry for the hijack...won’t do it again.

Clone is pretty much doing an in-place image and restore to another drive, without the intermediate file step.

So this is like wondering why you would "Move" a file instead of Copying it and then deleting it.

[Computer_Commando]

The intention of an image backup is not to do it one time & forget about it, but to do it on a regularly scheduled basis.  If you move your personal data to a separate partition, you only have to image Windows & the installed programs.  Windows 10 is less than 25GB & Macrium Reflect compresses the image 2 to 1, so images should be less than 25GB.  If you use it on a regular basis, turn off System Protection which will greatly reduce the size of the C-Drive.  Save you data without Reflect to a flash drive or to the same external HDD you would use for Reflect.

Don't forget to create a bootable CD or flash drive so you can restore the image.

[spankBot]

I would just get another drive equal or larger in size and clone the drive which is a sector by sector copy of your drive in its very state. I do not recommend using disks (cd/dvd). You could keep it connected to do incremental back ups but that's redundancy in which case a RAID 1 would be ideal.  Just make sure everything is the way you want it and keep in mind any changes will not be on the cloned (non RAID) drive. Even better you could replace your dvd drive with an HDD and run a software RAID 1,that is if you do not have available SATA ports.