I am so used to doing a scheduled backup and image of my install once a week but now I see it is file history. I am really not sure how this feature works in relation to the old image and backups. I have partitioned a portable drive of 500GB for my backups and have started doing the file history. I am now looking at the advanced settings and see this
Now as I was not thinking of leaving my portable turned on 24/7 as I used to do a scheduled backup once a week so now I am a bit stuck.
The setting "Size of Online Cache"has also got me confused. I have set it to the max of 20% disk space.
What I was actually thinking of doing is to make my first "backup"of my fresh install of Win8 and keep this as a restore backup if I ever want to revert back to this point of my setup. I was then going to use another partition on my portable drive for my weekly backups as I did before
My C: - 500GB
D: - 300GB This drive is space so if I have to have a drive that is on all the time could I use this one. The one thing that worries me is the difference in size?
File History is not a backup or image of Windows 8.
File History is a new feature introduced in Windows 8 that automatically backs up only files that are in your libraries, contacts, favorites, Microsoft SkyDrive, and on your desktop. If the originals are lost, damaged, or deleted, you can restore all of them. You can also find different versions of your files from a specific point in time. Over time, you'll have a complete history of your files. The tutorial below can give you more info about File History. Be sure to see the related links at the bottom of the tutorial as well.
Ah thanks after scratching around a bit more I found this option in my CP "Win7 File Recover"looking at it it seems to do the same function as what the Win7 backup and restore did. I created a system image and now I have set it to do my backups weekly as I did before. I will now also read a bit more on the File History setup, thanks for the info
Oh boy so now we need to purchase a third party application to do this. I have used Macrium Reflect free edition for some time now but have never tried it on Windows 7 or 8 doing a restore only XP and that worked great. The thing is it the paid version will be needed to do scheduled backups as I am doing now so I suppose I better start looking at this
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Recently lost my Windows 8 on my main PC, had to go back to Windows 7.
Oh boy so now we need to purchase a third party application to do this. I have used Macrium Reflect free edition for some time now but have never tried it on Windows 7 or 8 doing a restore only XP and that worked great. The thing is it the paid version will be needed to do scheduled backups as I am doing now so I suppose I better start looking at this
Hi there
Windows Backup was never IMO any good anyway -- a robust 3rd party application like Acronis was far better -- but there are Free one's available.
File History is perhaps OK in emergency situations -- it's a bit like "Incremental file backups" where only the CHANGES from the previous version are saved - so much less data needs to be kept than if you do a complete file backup.
However IMO the best strategy (especially now with Large HDD's available) is to separate your OS / applications into its own partition -- around 50 GB should be more than enough in most cases -- even for a largish installation. Back this up regularly as a full image --there might also be a small system 100MB partition too--if that exists save that as well in the image backup.
For your DATA do a complete backup ONCE --then take incrementals -- that's what a lot of the commercial programs do --they make it easy to schedule daily incremental backups.
To recover a file from an incremental backup -- restore first from the FULL backup and then recover from the various incremental backups until you've got the version you want.
For Music files I backed up the whole library about 3 months ago and just do incrementals about twice a month - these files don't change much. For other data I might do a complete backup once a month and run the incrementals backups once a week -- you need to devise a decent backup strategy for DATA depending on what it is and how much you need it.
I backup the OS NIGHTLY as well as before adding / installing any software or making hardware / other configuration changes -- backing up an OS that's on an SSD to another SSD takes around 5-7 mins -- time well spent however you look at it. !!!
If you do use incremental backups don't forget to take a FULL backup every so often.