Which programs are best to make image and clone of Windows OS?

[console]

Like to make backup of operating system (include all user settings, programs & games installed, drivers, registry, etc) to create image.

Example if bad Windows Updates, bad drivers and any infect files would mess up operating system very bad then we have to restore image to roll back to clean stable operating system with correct know good Windows updates and drivers.



1. Which programs are best to make image and clone of Windows OS?

I would like have many features like everything come with like backup and restore.



2. Which programs are best to clone whole operating system (include all user settings, programs & games installed, drivers, registry, etc) to another 2nd hard drive / SSD (SATA type) or 2nd SSD NVMe / SATA (2230 to 2280 types)?

Also make mirror copy of whole operating system to another 2nd drive to make as boot up in BIOS setting to switch which one HDD/SSD to change another HDD/SSD to select then apply to save change then boot up different drive (HDD/SSD) that we like to.




Programs list: both free and paid


Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office --> was old name Acronis True Image

Active Disk Image Professional

AOMEI Backupper
AOMEI Partition Assistant

Drive SnapShot

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Tech
EaseUS Partition Master
EaseUS Todo Backup Home

Macrium Reflect

OO DiskImage Pro

Paragon Hard Disk Manager

Perfect Backup

R-Drive Image

Retrospect Solo



Not sure if missing any program / software name list above.





About me:

I used Acronis True Image 2013 on my Windows 7. I know program is very old and outdated.

I had MSI laptop come with Windows 10. I don't have idea which best program for to make backup image. It have 512 GB SSD type 2280, but I did add new 2 TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus. I would like to switch copy or different operating system on 2nd SSD NVMe (2280 type) to change boot up in BIOS.







.

 

[FAST6191]

Best these days is install the OS on a virtual machine and use that instead. The OS at that point becomes a file.

No mention of Clonezilla? https://clonezilla.org/
It is the open source world's weapon of choice. Worked wonders for me in the past both single machine, mass deployment and multi machine (had a garage that did electronics for every brand of car, consequently had a laptop for every brand of car as virtualising some of those was difficult). Main problem was during the shift to SSD if your partitions were larger than the SSD you were moving to (very likely to be the case) then you had some fiddling to do. Today I am seeing 1TB SSDs for under £40 so probably not going to have too much mismatch from your spinning rust.

Equally how much call for this there is I don't know -- these days if you restore someone's browser settings (which if you are a trusting fool you can allow google, mozilla/firefox or the like to have) and maybe their pictures (which might well be on a cloud storage thing) you have their PC set up for them, especially with the likes of https://ninite.com/ to give you tools to use without having to click next 1000 times.
I do also tend to find Windows and hard drives stable enough, and viruses few enough that reinstalling is a rarity compared to the XP era.

 

[Kazesama]

As FAST6191 mentioned. VMs are the way to go. Especially with things like promox and qemu/kvm, you can passthrough hardware to the VM (GPU etc). If the OS corrupts or you mess up? delete the image and transfer a backup and your back up and running again in just a few mins.

 

[Hayato213]

Used Acronis and Macrium from the list provided, as for raw copy cloning you can use a docking station to do an 1:1 copy.

 

[tech3475]

Best these days is install the OS on a virtual machine and use that instead. The OS at that point becomes a file.

This comes with a performance cost though, especially if you plan on doing anything demanding. Even with something like GPU passthrough, SSD pass through, etc. I notice the difference.

Personally, on my main rig I just make weekly backups using Macrium Reflect, previously Acronis 2019. Paid off when my SSD suddenly died one day. For anything data critical, you could have daily backups of specific folders to reduce the load on the system.

It's been years since I've just cloned a drive, instead I usually image and restore.

 

[Marc_LFD]

I have a clean ISO of the Windows OS I generally install and files of the programs to then install, I don't make clones of it or whatever as I prefer fresh installs instead.

Which programs are they? That's really subjective from one person to another as their needs are different.

 

[Kazesama]

This comes with a performance cost though, especially if you plan on doing anything demanding. Even with something like GPU passthrough, SSD pass through, etc. I notice the difference.

Personally, on my main rig I just make weekly backups using Macrium Reflect, previously Acronis 2019. Paid off when my SSD suddenly died one day. For anything data critical, you could have daily backups of specific folders to reduce the load on the system.

It's been years since I've just cloned a drive, instead I usually image and restore.

VMs does have its uses. ex: I can run MacOS without having to fiddle with bios modding and stuff. But I do agree, if you need the all the performance, baremetal is the way to go.

 

[DinohScene]

+1 for Macrium.
I use it myself a lot.

 

[tech3475]

VMs does have its uses. ex: I can run MacOS without having to fiddle with bios modding and stuff. But I do agree, if you need the all the performance, baremetal is the way to go.

I wasn't saying VMs are useless, I use them all the time with my firewall, etc. being virtualised on an old thin client and this very post being made on a Windows VM running on my home server.

My comment was just that they do have their cons though, otherwise it would make sense to just use virtualisation, especially with things like snapshots, etc.

 

[Kazesama]

I wasn't saying VMs are useless, I use them all the time with my firewall, etc. being virtualised on an old thin client and this very post being made on a Windows VM running on my home server.

My comment was just that they do have their cons though, otherwise it would make sense to just use virtualisation, especially with things like snapshots, etc.

I wasn't implying that, just making conversation.

 

[FAST6191]

I have a clean ISO of the Windows OS I generally install and files of the programs to then install, I don't make clones of it or whatever as I prefer fresh installs instead.

Which programs are they? That's really subjective from one person to another as their needs are different.

That is fine if you are a nerd having a conversation like this on a place like this.

Land someone on a "I have it for emails and facebook" grade of internet connection with a day dot install of Microsoft's latest and greatest a few years after it is released and the amount of (probably mandatory at this point) updates is going to be killer on various senses of the term (said connection probably also sees a minimum viable product laptop or ancient tower be there as well and if you know how ro make whatever Windows update is called this week not be a system stress test* then you are a better nerd than me).

*no disabling it and calling it quits.

Also *pours one out for nlite*, though I suppose there is https://www.ntlite.com/ . Was lovely having a fully tweaked install with all the updates and drivers for a specific machine ready and able to go.

This comes with a performance cost though, especially if you plan on doing anything demanding. Even with something like GPU passthrough, SSD pass through, etc. I notice the difference.

Personally, on my main rig I just make weekly backups using Macrium Reflect, previously Acronis 2019. Paid off when my SSD suddenly died one day. For anything data critical, you could have daily backups of specific folders to reduce the load on the system.

It's been years since I've just cloned a drive, instead I usually image and restore.

If you are contemplating max settings and frames in games, or having a database where you know you need a specific setup of RAID and drive format that cares about things to sector level then maybe. Average desktop/workstation tasks though then even before GPU passthrough became a true thing I was having a great time doing CAD (nowadays not as much of a system grinder save for the simulation aspects but back then was up there with any game). Today games are eminently playable from where I sit, which even if it is side by side noticeable is going to struggle to bother me overly.

Also comes with the added bonus of being able to package a given setup up and ship that to the client with an install of the OS, CAD program of a version that made the files... such that they can spin it back up in 10-15 years happily enough.

My greater annoyances tend to be USB pass through (even today I am not sure I would give it to my grandfather and not expect a call) but things there tend to be less and less in number (nobody having annoying ipods anymore that want Windows + itunes).
Whether I would go full in on proxmox, qemu and such vs autostart a virtualbox instance or vmware for the average man on the street (proxmox tends to want to be very task specific/almost thin client in a multi user office deployment) is a different one.

 

[linuxares]

Clonezilla on both imho. Free, opensource and works. Just follow a guide.

But if you want the "snapshot"/"time machine" approach as it seems you want, it's gonna be a lot harder.
Probably the best I can recommend you is this - https://www.veeam.com/blog/veeam-endpoint-backup-free-is-here.html

Veeam Endpoint allows incremental backups (more or less snapshots) so you don't need to do for example a 1tb backup each time.

Then lets say Windows corrupted the whole harddrive to the point of no recovery for you, you can just simply use the recovery tool and restore it to the last taken backup (Maybe like 5AM each day?)

 

[tech3475]

If you are contemplating max settings and frames in games, or having a database where you know you need a specific setup of RAID and drive format that cares about things to sector level then maybe. Average desktop/workstation tasks though then even before GPU passthrough became a true thing I was having a great time doing CAD (nowadays not as much of a system grinder save for the simulation aspects but back then was up there with any game). Today games are eminently playable from where I sit, which even if it is side by side noticeable is going to struggle to bother me overly.

Also comes with the added bonus of being able to package a given setup up and ship that to the client with an install of the OS, CAD program of a version that made the files... such that they can spin it back up in 10-15 years happily enough.

My greater annoyances tend to be USB pass through (even today I am not sure I would give it to my grandfather and not expect a call) but things there tend to be less and less in number (nobody having annoying ipods anymore that want Windows + itunes).
Whether I would go full in on proxmox, qemu and such vs autostart a virtualbox instance or vmware for the average man on the street (proxmox tends to want to be very task specific/almost thin client in a multi user office deployment) is a different one.

YMMV, I use a Windows VM all the time with GPU/SSD pass through on my unraid server and there are times when I notice things are a bit slower than if I was bare metal and I have to disable things like Hyper-V support. For me the benefits do outweigh the cons though but that's more because I don't like my gaming desktop running 24/7.

Funnily enough though, I am able to use this for basic CAD on Fusion 360.....it's not perfect but at least this time it's hard to tell if it's the software or the host causing freezing.

As for USB, I ended up just buying a USB PCI-E card and passing that through to the VM, it's the easiest method I found and apart from when I accidentally knocked the power cable, it hasn't given me any issues (so far).

I use Proxmox on a thin client, I wouldn't describe that as 'man on the street friendly', especially if unlicensed as you have to jump through some hoops for things like updates, dealing with an annoying prompt and enabling iommu. I'd be more inclined to look at a Linux distro like OMV first (something I am meaning to try).

edit:

Oh and Nvidia GPUs can be a PITA or at least my old 1080ti was.

 

[Ryab]

Like to make backup of operating system (include all user settings, programs & games installed, drivers, registry, etc) to create image.

Example if bad Windows Updates, bad drivers and any infect files would mess up operating system very bad then we have to restore image to roll back to clean stable operating system with correct know good Windows updates and drivers.



1. Which programs are best to make image and clone of Windows OS?

I would like have many features like everything come with like backup and restore.



2. Which programs are best to clone whole operating system (include all user settings, programs & games installed, drivers, registry, etc) to another 2nd hard drive / SSD (SATA type) or 2nd SSD NVMe / SATA (2230 to 2280 types)?

Also make mirror copy of whole operating system to another 2nd drive to make as boot up in BIOS setting to switch which one HDD/SSD to change another HDD/SSD to select then apply to save change then boot up different drive (HDD/SSD) that we like to.




Programs list: both free and paid


Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office --> was old name Acronis True Image

Active Disk Image Professional

AOMEI Backupper
AOMEI Partition Assistant

Drive SnapShot

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Tech
EaseUS Partition Master
EaseUS Todo Backup Home

Macrium Reflect

OO DiskImage Pro

Paragon Hard Disk Manager

Perfect Backup

R-Drive Image

Retrospect Solo



Not sure if missing any program / software name list above.





About me:

I used Acronis True Image 2013 on my Windows 7. I know program is very old and outdated.

I had MSI laptop come with Windows 10. I don't have idea which best program for to make backup image. It have 512 GB SSD type 2280, but I did add new 2 TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus. I would like to switch copy or different operating system on 2nd SSD NVMe (2280 type) to change boot up in BIOS.







.

If you want a full clone of the drive then use Clonezilla.