Macrium Reflect Backup

Wikikenkey

Can I backup my c drive to a usb stick? My dell 2350 xp desktop is quite dated and reads dvds but doesnt seem to be writeable. Can write to cd-rw but I would need about 30 disks!!!

GunJack

better to an external hard drive - won't get lost so easily

fenlander_uk

Sounds like you have about 20GB to back up. Depending on the files, Macrium will compress that, probably to around half. Remember that good practice is to keep 3 generations of backup, in case you unknowingly back up a disk that is already corrupt or incomplete in some way. That would be a tight squeeze on a 32MB flash drive or SD card: personally I'd always go for a portable HD. Having plenty of space also allows you to make separate backups of data like music, photos and video. If you accidentally delete a couple of tracks, it's much easier to recover copies made with something like SyncToy or - better - SyncBack, rather than having to poke around in a Macrium image for them.

You will also need a Macrium restore disk: this is a bootable CD or DVD that you can use to start the computer in order to be able to restore one of your backups. Without a restore disk, the backup files are useless as far as restoring a complete system is concerned.

Wikikenkey

fenlander_uk wrote: »

Sounds like you have about 20GB to back up. Depending on the files, Macrium will compress that, probably to around half.

Thanks fenlander. Yes I do have about 21GB. Would you recommend I back up to CD-R disks if this will be compressed to half? Won't need that many disks then? I already have Western Digital backing up my files and have my music on a USB flash drive.

How many disks do I need for the restore disk or does this vary depending on PC?

closed

cd-r's are fine for the boot cd, but not really the place for a large image, if you already have an external drive, you may as well use it.

is the optical drive a dvd writer?

Wikikenkey

closed wrote: »

cd-r's are fine for the boot cd, but not really the place for a large image, if you already have an external drive, you may as well use it.

is the optical drive a dvd writer?

I don't think its a dvd writer. Think it's a cd writer. I can watch dvds but not write to them. I can burn cds.

closed

the logo on the front should tell you

xp doesn't automatically allow dvd burning without 3rd party software.

fenlander_uk

You're going to need about 20 CDRs per backup! That's far too many opportunities for something to go wrong and doing a full backup will be such a pain that you probably won't bother - not often enough, anyway.

What's the WD drive? Is there some reason not to use that for a Macrium image as well?