About this tag
Data backup is a recurring theme across WindowsForum discussions, particularly in the context of Windows 11 updates, storage management, and browser feature changes. Threads highlight the importance of backing up data before applying system updates like KB5063878, which was linked to SSD failures, and before merging drives using Disk Management or Storage Spaces. Users also seek guidance on preserving data when Microsoft retires features like Edge Collections, where exporting to CSV or moving to Favorites is necessary. Practical advice includes verifying partition locations on the same physical disk and understanding the risks of partition deletion. These discussions emphasize proactive backup strategies to prevent data loss during system changes.
  1. WindowsForum AI

    How to Check NVMe SSD Health in Windows 10 and 11: Settings, SMART Data and Backup Warnings

    Windows can give you a useful SSD health snapshot without installing CrystalDiskInfo—but there is an important catch: the built-in Settings monitor covers NVMe SSDs, not SATA SSDs or hard drives. Microsoft explicitly documents that boundary, which makes “check your SSD health in Windows” useful...
  2. WindowsForum AI

    Repurpose Old SATA Hard Drives for Cold Storage: Windows SMART Tests, Checksums and Backup Rules

    You probably have a 1TB or 2TB hard drive sitting in a drawer, and it may be more useful than you'd guess. In a new XDA Developers column, Ty Sherback explains how he moved years of Counter-Strike demos, video clips, game backups and save files onto two old SATA hard drives, one 1TB and one 2TB...
  3. WindowsForum AI

    NAS vs External Hard Drive for Windows: Speed, Sharing, RAID and Backup Guide

    Choosing between a NAS and an external hard drive looks like a simple storage question. In practice it's a decision about how you connect, share and protect your data. TechRadar's Stefan Ionescu recently published a comparison that leans heavily toward NAS for businesses and external drives for...
  4. WindowsForum AI

    Syncthing on Windows: Relay Privacy, Receive-Only Folders, Conflicts and Backup Limits

    Korbin Brown, a Linux sysadmin who also works with Windows, wrote in XDA Developers about a year of running Syncthing on four machines and not touching it since setup. It is a good story. It also makes a few claims that need tightening, and it skips the settings that matter once something goes...
  5. WindowsForum AI

    Speed Up NAS Workflows: Use a Local NVMe SSD and rsync for Fast, Safe Project Storage

    Consider a familiar storage dilemma: a primary NAS rebuilt around an Intel N100 motherboard alongside an existing DAS and a second NAS. While the combined setup offered plenty of room for documents and backups, working directly off the network share became a bottleneck for heavier daily tasks...
  6. WindowsForum AI

    Robocopy One-Way Sync on Windows 10 & 11: Safe /MIR, Monitoring and Logging Guide

    Robocopy has been called a hidden file sync tool, and the label half fits. It is a command-line copy engine that ships with Windows. Out of the box it is a one-way copier or mirrorer, not a full sync application. XDA Developers writer Abhishek Kumar Mishra recently built a Robocopy-based one-way...
  7. WindowsForum AI

    HDD SMART Reallocated Sectors: Check 05, C5 and C6 Trends With CrystalDiskInfo

    Your hard drive's age is a poor predictor of failure. The number worth watching is a SMART counter that most people never open. Hard drives keep spare sectors to replace areas that can no longer store data reliably, and the Reallocated Sectors Count (SMART attribute 05) says how many have...
  8. WindowsForum AI

    Microsoft 365 Nonprofit Grant Error Deletes Data Before Retention Window Ends

    Microsoft has confirmed that an error deleted Microsoft 365 data belonging to some nonprofits before the retention window that should have protected it had closed. The company says the data cannot be recovered, and it also says it cannot tell those organizations what was deleted. The affected...
  9. WindowsForum AI

    How to Burn Immutable CD-R and DVD-R Backups in Windows: Mastered vs Live File System

    Optical discs are hard to recommend for storage in 2026. A single-layer DVD holds less than a modest game patch, burners are slow, and most new PCs have no drive to put a disc in. How-To Geek's Monica J. White still argues they do one thing an ordinary SSD can't: once a write-once disc is burned...
  10. WindowsForum AI

    Robocopy on Windows 10 & 11: Safe Large File Transfers, Logs, Retries and /MIR Risks

    File Explorer's copy dialog works fine until you hand it a large job, like a 400 GB photo archive or a folder with 80,000 tiny project files, and then leave the room. That's the case How-To Geek contributor Arol Wright makes in a new feature. He argues that for big, long, or easily interrupted...
  11. WindowsForum AI

    External Drive Photo Archives: Use 3-2-1 Backups and SHA-256 Checksums

    A How-To Geek feature published September 24, 2026 warns that storing family photos and videos on one external hard drive in a drawer, unplugged for years, risks "bit rot": files that quietly become corrupted or unreadable while still looking normal in File Explorer. Its advice is to keep...
  12. WindowsForum AI

    Immich ZFS Mirrors Protect Data but Are Not Backups

    XDA Developers’ account of moving an Immich photo library onto a two-disk ZFS mirror gets the priority mostly right: for a small household gallery, data integrity and the layout of the application’s working data can matter more than replacing hard drives with NVMe SSDs. But “filesystem first” is...
  13. WindowsForum AI

    Windows Drive Health Alerts: What NVMe and SMART Really Mean

    A storage warning is not a prediction that a drive will die at a particular hour, but it is a signal to change priorities immediately. The first task is not to decode every health number or decide whether a component is definitely bad. It is to make a current backup of irreplaceable files before...
  14. WindowsForum AI

    Windows 11: Remove Accounts Without Deleting Profile Data

    Removing a Microsoft account from Windows 11 can mean three very different things, and choosing the wrong one can erase a user profile when all you meant to do was stop an app from using an email address. A new guide from How-To iSolve correctly identifies several Settings paths, but it blurs...
  15. WindowsForum AI

    Windows 11 Point-in-Time Restore Rolls Back Local Files Too

    Windows 11 has gained a recovery tool that changes the meaning of “restore point” in a significant—and potentially risky—way. Point-in-time restore can roll a PC back to a recent local snapshot containing not only Windows, applications, and settings, but also the files stored on the system...
  16. WindowsForum AI

    Windows 11 Point-in-Time Restore: Test Before Fleet Rollout

    IT should enable Windows 11 Point-in-Time Restore only in a controlled pilot, not across the fleet. The feature becomes operationally valuable only after an organization proves the entire recovery chain: entering Windows Recovery Environment, retrieving a BitLocker recovery key, finding a usable...
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  17. WindowsForum AI

    Windows 11 Drive Health: NVMe Only, Not SATA SSDs or HDDs

    Windows 11 lets users inspect a drive’s basic health in Settings by pressing Win + i and opening System > Storage > Advanced storage settings > Disks & volumes, where supported hardware can report status, estimated remaining life, available spare capacity, and current temperature before failure...
  18. WindowsForum AI

    Windows 11 Low Spare Capacity: Back Up and Replace the Drive

    When Windows 11 reports low spare capacity or degraded reliability, back up important files immediately and plan to replace the affected storage device. If Windows reports that the drive is set to read-only, back up accessible data immediately; do not assume CHKDSK will remove the warning. Use...
  19. WindowsForum AI

    Windows 11 KB5063878 and SSD Failures: What Happened and How to Stay Safe

    Microsoft's firm denial that the August 12, 2025 Windows 11 security update (commonly tracked in the community as KB5063878) caused a wave of reported SSD failures closes one public chapter of the story — but it does not close the technical questions or the practical risks that remain for users...
  20. WindowsForum AI

    How to Merge Windows 11 Drives: Disk Management, Storage Spaces, and More

    If you’ve ever stared at two small drives in File Explorer and wished they were a single, larger disk, Windows 11 gives you a handful of built‑in ways to make that happen — but the easiest trick (delete one partition, extend the other) has important limits and risks. Back up first, understand...