I learned a lot regarding disk imaging using macrium reflect. Disk imaging is like looking yourself at the mirror where everything is copied to your image including the operating systems and other system files and together with your data files. However, when creating a disk image, you cannot use the same drive as the one you are backing up so you need data storage for your back-up which should be at least as big as the total file size of the drive you are imaging since it is copying everything.
An advantage of this from viewpoint is that you’ll not bother to select the files you want and individually create a backup. You can copy everything without disorienting you because the files are saved in exactly the same folders as what they used to be located. When reinstalling, it will be much easier to reinstall because you’ll just have to copy the image you have especially when you are installing in several identical computers.
One disadvantage I see is that if you have virus, it will be copied along with it.
In this exercises, I learned how to use the disk image or the backup created to restore your system in case your system crashes.
When you have plans of using your backup image to restore you file system, you need to create a bootable recovery disk which you will use later for booting up your system and navigating to the location of your disk image. By principle, this is also the process when you want to install identical file systems to several computers. This will lessen your installation time because you’ll not be installing all the required files and programs individually where it takes a lot of time. For example, installing windows will already require 30 minutes per unit.
There are several ways of creating backups of your files. Aside from disk imaging and making scheduled backups, you can also create backups using integrated back up capabilities of different Operating Systems. In Windows Server 2008, a DVD backup can also be made as long as your computer has an installed DVD writer. In creating the backup, you have the choice to copy the backup from a scheduled backup or to create an entirely fresh backup if there is no existing backup schedule.
