Which software can turn my internal SSD into an external one?
Which software can turn my internal SSD into an external one?
Booting Windows off a USB stick is totally different than putting it in your computer's hard drive or another drive. So... you write the pictures out onto the USB. If you need to fix your main operating system drive, you boot from a Macrium Rescue USB. Then, tell it where your picture file is and where your new drive is. Wait until everything finishes. It boots up exactly like when you made that picture originally. The RescueUSB comes from other options under Create Rescue Media... I have a stick saved in the bottom of my case so it doesn't get lost or used for something else. If NOT the main OS drive, then the function works right there with the Macrium client without needing to boot from the Rescue thing too. Also, Clone and Image are two different things. A clone is just for swapping drives right now. An image is for backing up data that might be useful later on.
Thanks for clearing things up! If I mess up and hit a blue screen that stops me from starting, do I really need to use Macrium Rescue just to get back on track? That's cool if I can put a separate drive or space on my SSD so it won't break things. Less complicated setup, yeah? Will everything actually work now?
You don't really need to mess with hard drives like this. It is way safer just to put your backup drive on a small USB stick.
I have an external hard drive with Macrium Rescue D that I need to use. First, I will copy all my files from the C: drive onto this external drive. Then I can take a backup image there and put it back on my internal laptop SSD so what is there stays safe. Just testing the process right now; no worries about having an extra thumb drive for fun! The main question is whether I can just boot directly from that external USB drive to see if it works, or do I need software? It doesn't matter much since running this routine will fix my laptop anyway. But until then, when I buy a new SSD in case of failure, I won't be able to use my computer at all!
A new drive really only matters if the old physical drive breaks completely. I have more than a dozen different SSDs in systems at home. Some have been running without fail since 2013. But one of them actually broke down physically. This backup step also keeps your data safe from all kinds of other problems like viruses, bad software, or people accidentally deleting things. That stuff is way more likely to happen than a drive breaking on its own.
You don't need a partition if you take an image; it just works like a normal file on the same drive as Macrium. With Windows 10, you can add this image to the boot menu using BCD commands and start up there, but be careful because messing with that main system could break your setup too much and lead to bad windows. So, it's better not to do it.
And to be brutally honest, making disk images in 2021 is pointless for most people. Most of your stuff on the computer can easily come from websites or USB sticks when you start Windows again. What about game saves? They live online. Steam apps? Those are installed too. Ninite.com Game saves? All those things are stored in the cloud. Even things like Chrome bookmarks and extensions, or music tracks from Spotify, videos from YouTube, and content from Netflix? Everything is synced to your Google account now.
Backing up your whole hard drive to an image was popular 10 or 15 years ago. Back then, reinstalling the operating system took days because everything was on old discs and CDs that were slow to read. Those days are gone. Now you can install a fresh copy of Windows 10 in about twenty minutes on a fast computer, and most of your stuff comes back online in just a couple of hours with a good internet connection. Restoring from an image takes forever—way longer than just reinstalling everything—which isn't even fair because creating the initial backup took time and effort all along.
I actually only make backups for personal files and documents that I can't find anywhere else easily. I've had to start my computer from scratch a few times (usually when I buy a new system), but it takes me two or three hours just to get back exactly where I was before.
Well, some of us have other things besides games and youtube videos, and apps that aren't on ninite. Like CAD or video/photo programs, plus extra plugs for those stuffes. There are several different virtual machines set up with connections to all the systems in our house. And sure, we keep personal files from way back when. Full drive backups take literally zero seconds of my day. That's why automation is cool. The software knows exactly what needs doing and when. Everything goes hands off. Full drive backups mean I never lose anything. "Oops, I forgot that folder..." But... no matter how hard you try... just do it. Whatever works for you. My routine works for me. A copy of a 1TB drive moving across the house LAN to a new drive takes about ninety minutes. Yes, I've already done this. If your job takes FOREVER... you're using the wrong tools.
I like USAFRet's answer. I use cloud storage, but downloading what I need takes forever! Plus, because everything is synced, files sometimes get messed up. It feels safer to have a full image of my external SSD without any gaps. This makes life easier and stops having duplicate or weird copies. A fresh copy of Windows means goodbye to all those programs and saved settings on them! That's not needed often. And I can do the reset overnight while I sleep.
Samsung data migration WILL copy your C drive to an external USB connected SSD. In the event of failure, you would need to install that copy in your PC and boot from it. Of course, your PC needs to be able to install the backup hardware and change the boot order to it. Up to a point, this can serve as backup. But, I think external backup is better done with purpose built utilities that can create an image and subsequently do incremental updates.