Macrium Backup on Laptop

man00 · May 16, 2024

I gave 500GB SSD I made a partition 100GB
Can I back the remaining 400GB to the 100GB
and if need be restore from the 100GB to the 400GB
Using the USB boot Macrium disk?

idgat · May 16, 2024

man00 said:
Can I back the remaining 400GB to the 100GB

Depends on how much data it contains - if more then the 100GB target, then obviously no, you can't.

man00 said:
and if need be restore from the 100GB to the 400GB

Of course it'll fit.

In both cases, Macrium (and other similar software) also look at the volume of data, not just the "fixed" size of a partition.

cereberus · May 17, 2024

man00 said:
I gave 500GB SSD I made a partition 100GB
Can I back the remaining 400GB to the 100GB
and if need be restore from the 100GB to the 400GB
Using the USB boot Macrium disk?

Aside from fact that the most you could backup in compressed format is around 200 GB, the more important point is that a backup to same physical drive is really a bad plan.

If the drive fails, SO DOES THE BACKUP.

As a minimum use a second drive. This can be internal or external, although an external drive is safer in the sense if pc say caught on fire, an external drive would be less likely to suffer damage.

glasskuter · May 17, 2024

cereberus said:
same physical drive is really a bad plan.

Cereberus is so right. Never backup to the same drive. If you want to partition the space for another purpose, that's fine, just not for backup of C:

wabbit · May 17, 2024

I only do my backups to external drives. Your drive for backups should be at least double the size of the drive you're backing up. If you're backing up a 500 GB drive, you should put your backups on at least a 1 TB external drive. I've been using external SSD drives, as they're much faster

idgat · May 17, 2024

OMG!! Was the OP referring to partitions on the same drive??? Missed that altogether.

Steve C · May 17, 2024

I make the backup partitions on my laptops larger than the system / data partition so I can save several full backups. You also need to backup to an external drive in case of internal drive failure.

cereberus · May 17, 2024

Steve C said:
I make the backup partitions on my laptops larger than the system / data partition so I can save several full backups. You also need to backup to an external drive in case of internal drive failure.

That is fine provided you pragmatically accept you may lose a few days data / updates (unless you backup to external drive every day).

I rather do the same i.e. backup to separate internal drive, then to an external drive (less frequently).

Mooly · May 17, 2024

I'm going to add that imo making backups to the same drive is OK as long as you accept the risks already pointed out and that you periodically just copy the backup files (which are a single file for a full backup) to an external drive.

Also why use bootable recovery media when you have Macrium installed... I'm assuming you have it installed... as it is just so much less faffing around to restore directly from within Windows using the program.

If you look at 'This PC' in File Explorer you will see how much of your 400Gb is used. I don't think you said if this drive contains the operating system or not or whether it is just 'data'.

In my case the C drive takes around 43Gb as a Macrium backup image and if anyone wonders F and M drives are second internal drive..

Porthos · May 17, 2024

Mooly said:
In my case the C drive takes around 43Gb as a Macrium backup image and if anyone wonders F and M drives are second internal drive..

I use this with a second drive on as many of my clients as I can. I set up an auto backup for them so they do not have to think about it. I have saved the bacon of quite a few of them when they screw up.

Bree · May 17, 2024

man00 said:
I gave 500GB SSD I made a partition 100GB
Can I back the remaining 400GB to the 100GB and if need be restore from the 100GB to the 400GB Using the USB boot Macrium disk?

I find that the size of the image file is about 70% of the total size of the used space on the drive being backed up.

cereberus said:
...a backup to same physical drive is really a bad plan.
If the drive fails, SO DOES THE BACKUP.

I have more laptops than I have external usb drives to hold the images. So that I can have all my machines making their images at the same time, for those that have the space for a second data partition on the same drive I'll put the images there. It's convenient if you need to do a restore, and if you've also added Macrium recovery to the Boot Menu you don't even need a recovery boot usb.

Of course, when imaging is done I always copy the image to my external backup drive too - keeping your only backup on the same drive is a disaster waiting to happen.

man00 · May 17, 2024

Bree said:
I find that the size of the image file is about 70% of the total size of the used space on the drive being backed up.

I have more laptops than I have external usb drives to hold the images. So that I can have all my machines making their images at the same time, for those that have the space for a second data partition on the same drive I'll put the images there. It's convenient if you need to do a restore, and if you've also added Macrium recovery to the Boot Menu you don't even need a recovery boot usb.

Of course, when imaging is done I always copy the image to my external backup drive too - keeping your only backup on the same drive is a disaster waiting to happen.

Macrium recovery to the Boot Menu...I will have to check into that

dacrone · May 17, 2024

Just clone your disk to an external ssd once a month/week/whatever interval you want and mount a second internal drive and use a task scheduled Robocopy script to copy files daily. Won’t lose a single thing.