Windows 7 Windows7 Backup files?

[Rockhound]

I created first backup on an External Drive, which required twice the space as on C: drive, which I was backing up!.. There is a "WindowsImagebackup" folder plus a "Data file" named ""my name-PV", both of about equal size?

Why two files? plus the issue of taking up twice the space of the orininal...

 

[Drew]

1 is an image of the OS; can be used to recover/rebuild said OS.

The other is data files & just that; from this 1 can recover/restore/fetch specific, individual items, 1 or more, pick & choose.

When the Bk-up is done it can be image ONLY or data ONLY or BOTH...selectable choices.

Ergo, if both have been saved, will account for seemingly larger size.

Cheers,
Drew

 

[catilley1092]

Rockhound, welcome to the forum! You can download & install Todo Backup version 4.0, it'll image & do file backups in less space. Check it out:

Link Removed

Plus, it's a lot faster than Windows Backup. It's the only free one that I know of that does file backups. Plenty of options. I use it mainly for file backups, and Macrium Reflect for disk imaging. Macrium doesn't offer file backups in the free version. Todo also offers partitioning tools, which I use often, for free too.

Cat

 

[Rockhound]

Thanks Cat and Drew for your replies... That helps explain it .... I have system set for backup weekly, so will be interesting to see how much more of my 2T external drive Win7 uses... If it to add another "double space" I will have to start over with Plan B

 

[catilley1092]

Rockhound, when you install these backup programs, I suggest that you start over. Windows Backup requires a lot of space, whereas Todo & Macrium uses less. I have all 3 of my computers, one of which has 3 HDD's with multiple OS's, backed up on a 1TB Samsung HD 103SJ & a 500GB Seagate FreeAgentXtreme. And only half of the space is used.

As cheap as USB Flash drives are now, many 8GB ones at Newegg.com for less than $10 on promo, they can hold many documents, pictures & downloads (those .exe installer files). The USB 3.0 ones are really fast, some users reporting that their SSD is actually the bottleneck transferring files to them. But probably those users has 1st & 2nd generation SSD's. The latest ones are lightning fast.

Cat