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What’s the Difference Between an Image Backup and a Files-and-Folder Backup?

The difference is in how much is backed up.

This choice is about what you back up on your computer. It can make the difference between an easy or difficult recovery.
Images versus Files and Folders
(Image: askleo.com)
Question: Recently, I bought a one-terabyte external hard drive and Macrium Reflect backup software as you recommended. But now I’m very much confused about two features of it… and that is “Create Backup Image Wizard” and “Backup Files and Folder Wizard”. What is the difference between the two? What are the respective purposes? I’ve Googled about this and even searched on your site, but I couldn’t figure it out, so I finally decided to write you my first question.

It’s no secret that image backups are my go-to, and we’ll see why shortly.

Files-and-folders backups have their place, and tools like Reflect can automate them and make them part of a reasonable backup strategy.

But first, we need to understand the differences.

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TL;DR:

Image versus files-and-folder backups

An image is a complete backup of your entire hard drive, including Windows, programs, settings, and all data. It’s ideal for full system recovery. Files-and-folder backups select specific files and folders to back up. They’re useful for backing up important data, but it’s easy to miss essential items. Image backups cover everything without needing to decide what is or is not important.

An “image”

When you create a backup image, you are creating a copy of absolutely everything on the hard drive.

  • All of Windows
  • All of the programs you have installed
  • All of the settings
  • All of your data
  • All of everything on the drive that you’re backing up

You can create an “image” of a single partition, but I recommend an image of the entire physical drive. That then also includes:

  • The MBR, or Master Boot Record
  • Boot partitions
  • Recovery partitions
  • The partition containing your system (the C: drive)
  • Any additional data partitions you may have on the physical drive

Files and folders

As its name implies, a files-and-folders backup backs up only those files and folders you specify. Anything not specified is not backed up.

You might elect, for example, to back up your Documents folder to ensure your data is backed up. That backup would contain that folder and all its files and subfolders. It would contain nothing else.

You can specify any set of files and folders you like. This backup relies on your accurately specifying what you need backed up.

Failures

The difference becomes apparent when we talk about how your backup can be used in case of failure.

Hard-drive failure. If your hard drive dies and needs to be replaced, it’s an image backup you would restore and pick up where you left off. If you only have a files-and-folders backup, you’re faced with reinstalling Windows and all your apps before you can use that backup to restore the data you elected to back up.

Malware. If you get malware, you can use a backup image to revert your entire machine to the state it was in before the malware arrived, effectively removing the malware. With only a files-and-folder backup, you’re faced with either reinstalling Windows, as above, or hoping that your malware-removal tools actually remove the malware before you continue (and there are no guarantees that it will). If any documents were damaged by the malware, you could restore them from your files-and-folders backup.

File deletion. If you accidentally delete a file or files you’re working on or alter them in a way you didn’t intend, either backup will work: you simply restore the file(s) from the backup.

Images require no thought

When you have an image backup, you’re protected from everything. There is no thought about what you do or don’t need to back up; you’re backing up everything.

If your entire system needs restoration, you do so from the backup image.

If you need a file or files, you extract them from the backup image.

Files-and-folders backups require that you accurately predict which files will be important to you in the future while simultaneously accepting that if the worst happens, you’ll have to reinstall Windows and all your apps.

Files-and-folders backups have a place

While my default will always be to recommend an image backup, that doesn’t mean that files-and-folders backups aren’t useful. There are a few possibilities, including:

  • More frequent (throughout the day, even) backups of work in progress
  • Backups where you truly don’t need to back up your system or apps or have that covered in some other way
  • Backups of non-system drives and information
  • Backups requiring more than just a copy of the file

I do it myself. Yes, I take an image backup of my system nightly, but in addition, I have scripts backing up additional files and folders on other drives to replicate them to other locations. At least one of the backups of my more sensitive data is encrypted in the process.

Do this

Back up. One way or another, back up.

When in doubt, use an image backup. That way, there’s no question whether you’ll have everything you need because everything is included in the backup.

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