Disc imaging

On Fri, 18 May 2018 12:45:29 -0000 (UTC), Dave
wrote:

On Thu, 17 May 2018 19:06:48 -0700, Peter Kozlov wrote:

On Thu, 17 May 2018 18:29:23 +0100, Ed Cryer
wrote:

I like safety in my backups. So I regularly do both a System image with
Win10's Win7-style app, and then a Macrium Reflect one.

I did two today; Win10 took almost 2 hours, Macrium took 19mins.

1TB spinning HD, C partition occupies it all, apart from a few small
ones for reset etc. Which means that Macrium had even more to write.

Why is this? Why does Windows take so long? It's not doing anything more
than Macrium, and, in addition, it comes from MS themselves, the
creators of this system, the supposed connoisseurs.

Ed

I don't mean to hijack your thread at all. I ran into this post by luck.
I just happened to be looking to backup two Windows 10 machines.
I bought 64 GB USB thumb drives so I could make a system restore drive
in case Windows fails to boot. I'd like to make a full backup that
includes a method booting such that the backup can be read and restored.
As a bonus I'd like to be able to image the full system SSD and clone it
to a larger SSD in the future. And as yet another bonus if I could
incrementally update this image as time goes on that would be useful.

Does this Macrium home version do this? They have an option for a four
pack which I'm sure I can make use of. I have one machine which is
running an app which generated a finger-print string which was then used
to issue an activation code to run the app. I'd like to have to repeat
that whole process in the event the machine doesn't boot up one day or I
decide to increase the SSD drive size. Once I get these systems
installed just the way I like them I'd like to fully image the machine
as a safety net.

The time you mentioned to make your image sounds great. I'm using all
SSD's. These machines boot from SSD's and I would back them up to
Samsung T5 SSD devices which are USB 3.1 based. Hopefully that's not a
problem.

Does Macrium cover all those bases?

I think backing up to a thumb drive is a lousy idea, but to each his own.
I don't know why this discussion is going on so long. Windows backup on
windows 7 left a lot to be desired. Macrium is the best and it's free.
For platform independence I like Clonezilla, although it's a little less
user friendly than Macrium.

A T3 and T5 are not thumb drives. They are high speed SSDs that are
connected to the your computer via USB 3.1. They are basically M.2
drives inside a casing with a USB-C adapter. I've yet to see a thumb
drive do 500+ MB/sec read AND write. These do that and more.

--
Peter Kozlov

On 18/05/2018 20:20, Peter Kozlov wrote:

What I would use as a destination are Samsung T3 and T5 USB-C SSDs.


This is the product for you:

https://www.easeus.com/landing/newsletter-special.html

You will enjoy it and it will give you enjoyment over a very long time
to back-up, copy and clone hard disks. Go and buy it. It is cheap.

You'll have more time golfing!!

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/--- This email has been checked for viruses by
Windows Defender software.
//https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/comprehensive-security/
--
With over 600 million devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

Ed Cryer wrote:
I like safety in my backups. So I regularly do both a System image with
Win10's Win7-style app, and then a Macrium Reflect one.

I did two today; Win10 took almost 2 hours, Macrium took 19mins.

1TB spinning HD, C partition occupies it all, apart from a few small ones
for reset etc. Which means that Macrium had even more to write.

Why is this? Why does Windows take so long? It's not doing anything more
than Macrium, and, in addition, it comes from MS themselves, the creators of
this system, the supposed connoisseurs.

Ed

The Win10 included app was designed and pretty much unchanged for much older
o/s than Win10.

Imo, you'd be better off to discontinue use of the MSFT ancient 'tool' and
make 2 Macrium backups if no other software is readily available.
- my personal approach is create 'duplicate time' images. One with Acronis
True Image and another with Macrium.



--
...w¡ñ§±¤ñ
msft mvp windows experience 2007-2016, insider mvp 2016-2018

....w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
I like safety in my backups. So I regularly do both a System image
with Win10's Win7-style app, and then a Macrium Reflect one.

I did two today; Win10 took almost 2 hours, Macrium took 19mins.

1TB spinning HD, C partition occupies it all, apart from a few small
ones for reset etc. Which means that Macrium had even more to write.

Why is this? Why does Windows take so long? It's not doing anything
more than Macrium, and, in addition, it comes from MS themselves, the
creators of this system, the supposed connoisseurs.

Ed

The Win10 included app was designed and pretty much unchanged for much
older o/s than Win10.

Imo, you'd be better off to discontinue use of the MSFT ancient 'tool'
and make 2 Macrium backups if no other software is readily available.
Â*- my personal approach is create 'duplicate time' images. One with
Acronis True Image and another with Macrium.




I've never had Macrium let me down; never, over many years. Take an
image, restore it, I've restored umpteen times.
I think I'll just cut the old "tool" (It's slow under Win7 too), and
have just Macrium.

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote:
...w¡ñ§±¤ñÂ* wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
I like safety in my backups. So I regularly do both a System image
with Win10's Win7-style app, and then a Macrium Reflect one.

I did two today; Win10 took almost 2 hours, Macrium took 19mins.

1TB spinning HD, C partition occupies it all, apart from a few small
ones for reset etc. Which means that Macrium had even more to write.

Why is this? Why does Windows take so long? It's not doing anything
more than Macrium, and, in addition, it comes from MS themselves, the
creators of this system, the supposed connoisseurs.

Ed

The Win10 included app was designed and pretty much unchanged for much
older o/s than Win10.

Imo, you'd be better off to discontinue use of the MSFT ancient 'tool'
and make 2 Macrium backups if no other software is readily available.
Â*Â*- my personal approach is create 'duplicate time' images. One with
Acronis True Image and another with Macrium.




I've never had Macrium let me down; never, over many years. Take an
image, restore it, I've restored umpteen times.
I think I'll just cut the old "tool" (It's slow under Win7 too), and
have just Macrium.

Ed


P.S. Where is MS' new imager for their shiny new Win10 1803?

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote:
...w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
I like safety in my backups. So I regularly do both a System image
with Win10's Win7-style app, and then a Macrium Reflect one.

I did two today; Win10 took almost 2 hours, Macrium took 19mins.

1TB spinning HD, C partition occupies it all, apart from a few small
ones for reset etc. Which means that Macrium had even more to write.

Why is this? Why does Windows take so long? It's not doing anything
more than Macrium, and, in addition, it comes from MS themselves, the
creators of this system, the supposed connoisseurs.

Ed

The Win10 included app was designed and pretty much unchanged for much
older o/s than Win10.

Imo, you'd be better off to discontinue use of the MSFT ancient 'tool'
and make 2 Macrium backups if no other software is readily available.
- my personal approach is create 'duplicate time' images. One with
Acronis True Image and another with Macrium.




I've never had Macrium let me down; never, over many years. Take an
image, restore it, I've restored umpteen times.
I think I'll just cut the old "tool" (It's slow under Win7 too), and
have just Macrium.

Ed

Macrium can let you down. In an example here, it was bad RAM
in the computer, that corrupted the .mrimg on writes.
The data was being corrupted, after the step where
Macrium computes the checksum/hash, as the data was headed out
to the destination disk.

The build-in verify caught the issue some months later.
I was scanning my collection, looking for just the right
MRIMG and was idly running Verify on them, and two of them
showed up bad, and this was during the time interval where I
detected and corrected a RAM problem in the machine. I
put a whole new set of sticks in the machine, because I
could not fault-isolate to the nearest stick (the problem
would go away, with any config other than four DIMMs in
place). The bad memory was apparently some place the
OS uses for buffers, not in a location that an application
would crash - this gave all sorts of weird symptoms while
using the machine.

And yes, it takes a long time to run a verify, as
it cannot go any faster than the hard drive can go.
If you have a 1TB MRIMG, that will take a while.

The Restore will also stop, if it hits a verify
error during the run. So if you only own *one*
image, and are restoring over top of something,
this behavior should give you pause. You could
be left with *nothing* if you're not careful.

*******

As for the Win10 version of "Win7 Backup", I don't
recollect seeing a verify function in there. The Win10
version stores one partition per .vhdx file. Maybe I missed
the verify function in there somewhere.

Paul

Paul wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
...w¡ñ§±¤ñÂ* wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
I like safety in my backups. So I regularly do both a System image
with Win10's Win7-style app, and then a Macrium Reflect one.

I did two today; Win10 took almost 2 hours, Macrium took 19mins.

1TB spinning HD, C partition occupies it all, apart from a few small
ones for reset etc. Which means that Macrium had even more to write.

Why is this? Why does Windows take so long? It's not doing anything
more than Macrium, and, in addition, it comes from MS themselves,
the creators of this system, the supposed connoisseurs.

Ed

The Win10 included app was designed and pretty much unchanged for
much older o/s than Win10.

Imo, you'd be better off to discontinue use of the MSFT ancient
'tool' and make 2 Macrium backups if no other software is readily
available.
Â* - my personal approach is create 'duplicate time' images. One with
Acronis True Image and another with Macrium.




I've never had Macrium let me down; never, over many years. Take an
image, restore it, I've restored umpteen times.
I think I'll just cut the old "tool" (It's slow under Win7 too), and
have just Macrium.

Ed

Macrium can let you down. In an example here, it was bad RAM
in the computer, that corrupted the .mrimg on writes.
The data was being corrupted, after the step where
Macrium computes the checksum/hash, as the data was headed out
to the destination disk.

The build-in verify caught the issue some months later.
I was scanning my collection, looking for just the right
MRIMG and was idly running Verify on them, and two of them
showed up bad, and this was during the time interval where I
detected and corrected a RAM problem in the machine. I
put a whole new set of sticks in the machine, because I
could not fault-isolate to the nearest stick (the problem
would go away, with any config other than four DIMMs in
place). The bad memory was apparently some place the
OS uses for buffers, not in a location that an application
would crash - this gave all sorts of weird symptoms while
using the machine.

And yes, it takes a long time to run a verify, as
it cannot go any faster than the hard drive can go.
If you have a 1TB MRIMG, that will take a while.

The Restore will also stop, if it hits a verify
error during the run. So if you only own *one*
image, and are restoring over top of something,
this behavior should give you pause. You could
be left with *nothing* if you're not careful.

*******

As for the Win10 version of "Win7 Backup", I don't
recollect seeing a verify function in there. The Win10
version stores one partition per .vhdx file. Maybe I missed
the verify function in there somewhere.

Â*Â* Paul

What's the secondary backup be then? Acronis?

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote:
Paul wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
...w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
I like safety in my backups. So I regularly do both a System image
with Win10's Win7-style app, and then a Macrium Reflect one.

I did two today; Win10 took almost 2 hours, Macrium took 19mins.

1TB spinning HD, C partition occupies it all, apart from a few
small ones for reset etc. Which means that Macrium had even more to
write.

Why is this? Why does Windows take so long? It's not doing anything
more than Macrium, and, in addition, it comes from MS themselves,
the creators of this system, the supposed connoisseurs.

Ed

The Win10 included app was designed and pretty much unchanged for
much older o/s than Win10.

Imo, you'd be better off to discontinue use of the MSFT ancient
'tool' and make 2 Macrium backups if no other software is readily
available.
- my personal approach is create 'duplicate time' images. One with
Acronis True Image and another with Macrium.




I've never had Macrium let me down; never, over many years. Take an
image, restore it, I've restored umpteen times.
I think I'll just cut the old "tool" (It's slow under Win7 too), and
have just Macrium.

Ed

Macrium can let you down. In an example here, it was bad RAM
in the computer, that corrupted the .mrimg on writes.
The data was being corrupted, after the step where
Macrium computes the checksum/hash, as the data was headed out
to the destination disk.

The build-in verify caught the issue some months later.
I was scanning my collection, looking for just the right
MRIMG and was idly running Verify on them, and two of them
showed up bad, and this was during the time interval where I
detected and corrected a RAM problem in the machine. I
put a whole new set of sticks in the machine, because I
could not fault-isolate to the nearest stick (the problem
would go away, with any config other than four DIMMs in
place). The bad memory was apparently some place the
OS uses for buffers, not in a location that an application
would crash - this gave all sorts of weird symptoms while
using the machine.

And yes, it takes a long time to run a verify, as
it cannot go any faster than the hard drive can go.
If you have a 1TB MRIMG, that will take a while.

The Restore will also stop, if it hits a verify
error during the run. So if you only own *one*
image, and are restoring over top of something,
this behavior should give you pause. You could
be left with *nothing* if you're not careful.

*******

As for the Win10 version of "Win7 Backup", I don't
recollect seeing a verify function in there. The Win10
version stores one partition per .vhdx file. Maybe I missed
the verify function in there somewhere.

Paul

What's the secondary backup be then? Acronis?

Ed

I don't think the method is as important, as occasionally
running a Verify on the output might be. If you had
chosen Macrium and Acronis, you'd want them to both
support a Verify option.

Moving the disks to a second computer and doing a backup
with some second program, would be another way to cover
"unexpected" surprises.

Paul

"Ed Cryer" wrote in message news
P.S. Where is MS' new imager for their shiny new Win10 1803?

MSFT afiak, has no plans to provide a 'new' imaging utility for Windows 10

Look at it another way based on Win10's feature approach and inherent design
- Use an MSA and sync user settings and data with the cloud
- Upload data to the cloud(OneDrive) [1]
- Win10 can be reset/refreshed or reinstalled or clean installed

Additionally, MSFT is fully aware that 3rd party imaging tools are
available(free or for purchase)

Data backup is the end-user responsibility.

[1] Ever since Windows Live appeared in the fall of 2007, the primary use of
OneDrive(fka Space, SkyDrive) the has been for storing and sharing photos
with a Microsoft Account. While additional storage is available for a fee
or included in a O365 subscription the primary usage purpose by end-users
hasn't changed much.

--
....w¡ñ§±¤ñ
ms mvp windows 2007-2016, insider mvp 2016-2018

Paul wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
Paul wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
...w¡ñ§±¤ñÂ* wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
I like safety in my backups. So I regularly do both a System image
with Win10's Win7-style app, and then a Macrium Reflect one.

I did two today; Win10 took almost 2 hours, Macrium took 19mins.

1TB spinning HD, C partition occupies it all, apart from a few
small ones for reset etc. Which means that Macrium had even more
to write.

Why is this? Why does Windows take so long? It's not doing
anything more than Macrium, and, in addition, it comes from MS
themselves, the creators of this system, the supposed connoisseurs.

Ed

The Win10 included app was designed and pretty much unchanged for
much older o/s than Win10.

Imo, you'd be better off to discontinue use of the MSFT ancient
'tool' and make 2 Macrium backups if no other software is readily
available.
Â* - my personal approach is create 'duplicate time' images. One
with Acronis True Image and another with Macrium.




I've never had Macrium let me down; never, over many years. Take an
image, restore it, I've restored umpteen times.
I think I'll just cut the old "tool" (It's slow under Win7 too), and
have just Macrium.

Ed

Macrium can let you down. In an example here, it was bad RAM
in the computer, that corrupted the .mrimg on writes.
The data was being corrupted, after the step where
Macrium computes the checksum/hash, as the data was headed out
to the destination disk.

The build-in verify caught the issue some months later.
I was scanning my collection, looking for just the right
MRIMG and was idly running Verify on them, and two of them
showed up bad, and this was during the time interval where I
detected and corrected a RAM problem in the machine. I
put a whole new set of sticks in the machine, because I
could not fault-isolate to the nearest stick (the problem
would go away, with any config other than four DIMMs in
place). The bad memory was apparently some place the
OS uses for buffers, not in a location that an application
would crash - this gave all sorts of weird symptoms while
using the machine.

And yes, it takes a long time to run a verify, as
it cannot go any faster than the hard drive can go.
If you have a 1TB MRIMG, that will take a while.

The Restore will also stop, if it hits a verify
error during the run. So if you only own *one*
image, and are restoring over top of something,
this behavior should give you pause. You could
be left with *nothing* if you're not careful.

*******

As for the Win10 version of "Win7 Backup", I don't
recollect seeing a verify function in there. The Win10
version stores one partition per .vhdx file. Maybe I missed
the verify function in there somewhere.

Â*Â*Â* Paul

What's the secondary backup be then? Acronis?

Ed

I don't think the method is as important, as occasionally
running a Verify on the output might be. If you had
chosen Macrium and Acronis, you'd want them to both
support a Verify option.

Moving the disks to a second computer and doing a backup
with some second program, would be another way to cover
"unexpected" surprises.

Â*Â* Paul


I keep three generations of Macrium images. I've never had to use the
oldest two yet.
I also copy the latest to another disc every so often; about once every
six months.

Ed

P.S. "Disc" or "disk" in your country?

In article , Ed Cryer
wrote:

P.S. "Disc" or "disk" in your country?

general convention:
disc - optical media (cd, dvd, blu-ray discs), old school vinyl
records (disc jockey), type of brakes on a vehicle, toys and
games (frisbee disc golf)
disk - magnetic media (hard disk, floppy disk)

nospam wrote:
In article , Ed Cryer
wrote:

P.S. "Disc" or "disk" in your country?

general convention:
disc - optical media (cd, dvd, blu-ray discs), old school vinyl
records (disc jockey), type of brakes on a vehicle, toys and
games (frisbee disc golf)
disk - magnetic media (hard disk, floppy disk)


It's come along the same historical path as "programme" and "program".
One was UK English spelling, the other American.
We've adopted the American version for computers in the UK.

Disc/disk started the same path but that one diverged into what you call
"general convention".

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote:
Paul wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
Paul wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
...w¡ñ§±¤ñ wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
I like safety in my backups. So I regularly do both a System
image with Win10's Win7-style app, and then a Macrium Reflect one.

I did two today; Win10 took almost 2 hours, Macrium took 19mins.

1TB spinning HD, C partition occupies it all, apart from a few
small ones for reset etc. Which means that Macrium had even more
to write.

Why is this? Why does Windows take so long? It's not doing
anything more than Macrium, and, in addition, it comes from MS
themselves, the creators of this system, the supposed connoisseurs.

Ed

The Win10 included app was designed and pretty much unchanged for
much older o/s than Win10.

Imo, you'd be better off to discontinue use of the MSFT ancient
'tool' and make 2 Macrium backups if no other software is readily
available.
- my personal approach is create 'duplicate time' images. One
with Acronis True Image and another with Macrium.




I've never had Macrium let me down; never, over many years. Take an
image, restore it, I've restored umpteen times.
I think I'll just cut the old "tool" (It's slow under Win7 too),
and have just Macrium.

Ed

Macrium can let you down. In an example here, it was bad RAM
in the computer, that corrupted the .mrimg on writes.
The data was being corrupted, after the step where
Macrium computes the checksum/hash, as the data was headed out
to the destination disk.

The build-in verify caught the issue some months later.
I was scanning my collection, looking for just the right
MRIMG and was idly running Verify on them, and two of them
showed up bad, and this was during the time interval where I
detected and corrected a RAM problem in the machine. I
put a whole new set of sticks in the machine, because I
could not fault-isolate to the nearest stick (the problem
would go away, with any config other than four DIMMs in
place). The bad memory was apparently some place the
OS uses for buffers, not in a location that an application
would crash - this gave all sorts of weird symptoms while
using the machine.

And yes, it takes a long time to run a verify, as
it cannot go any faster than the hard drive can go.
If you have a 1TB MRIMG, that will take a while.

The Restore will also stop, if it hits a verify
error during the run. So if you only own *one*
image, and are restoring over top of something,
this behavior should give you pause. You could
be left with *nothing* if you're not careful.

*******

As for the Win10 version of "Win7 Backup", I don't
recollect seeing a verify function in there. The Win10
version stores one partition per .vhdx file. Maybe I missed
the verify function in there somewhere.

Paul

What's the secondary backup be then? Acronis?

Ed

I don't think the method is as important, as occasionally
running a Verify on the output might be. If you had
chosen Macrium and Acronis, you'd want them to both
support a Verify option.

Moving the disks to a second computer and doing a backup
with some second program, would be another way to cover
"unexpected" surprises.

Paul


I keep three generations of Macrium images. I've never had to use the
oldest two yet.
I also copy the latest to another disc every so often; about once every
six months.

Ed

P.S. "Disc" or "disk" in your country?

I use "Disc" for optical discs.

I use "Disk" for hard drives and so on.

This is my own convention, in the hopes that
somebody might notice without me having to explain
it all the time. There have been a few yoyos over
the years, who absolutely insist you explain
*everything* when you write up a procedure.
("What is oxygen?" "When should I breathe again?")
Using this convention, is so that maybe they
might tweak onto what I'm referring to, without
yet more paragraphs of text.

My Sent Folder is 100MB in size, and those
paragraphs add up. I wore out a keyboard, but
it took ten years :-) I'm actually on my
last spare keyboard.

Paul

In article , Paul
wrote:

P.S. "Disc" or "disk" in your country?

I use "Disc" for optical discs.

I use "Disk" for hard drives and so on.

This is my own convention,

more than just your own convention.

Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-05-20 17:15, Ed Cryer wrote:
nospam wrote:
In article , Ed Cryer
wrote:

P.S. "Disc" or "disk" in your country?

general convention:
* disc - optical media (cd, dvd, blu-ray discs), old school vinyl
*** records (disc jockey), type of brakes on a vehicle, toys and
*** games (frisbee disc golf)
* disk - magnetic media (hard disk, floppy disk)

It's come along the same historical path as "programme" and "program".
One was UK English spelling, the other American.
We've adopted the American version for computers in the UK.

Disc/disk started the same path but that one diverged into what you call
"general convention".

Ed


Actually "disk" is the older form.

Nah! Actually "disc" is the older form! :-)

But kidding aside, that's how nomenclature for magnetic disks changed
at HP. First it was 'disc' and later became 'disk' (and 'disc' for
optical media).

See for example http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=548:

"The 2757A was the first disc memory available for use with HP
computers."

A massive 340KB at only $23500, a complete steal!

[This is just a webpage, but the scanned 'Product Documentation' says
the same.]

[OTOH, you'll also find references to optical drives saying 'disk', so
..... "It depends!" :-)]