Advice Request How much space will i need ?

[Weebarra]

Firstly, apologies if i have posted in the wrong place.

I have been advised to do an image/system back up either using Macrium or Reflect but i was just wondering how much space i would need ? I know that may well be an unanswerable question as we all have different amounts of stuff on our pc's but if it's any help i have 175GB free on my C drive out of 232 GB (so basically i have used just under 60 GB.... i think, lol) and i have 224 GB free on my D drive out of 232 GB.

Sorry if this seems like an amateurish question by i AM an amateur The flash drive i have is only 16GB although i do have an external hard drive but would probably need to delete a lot of stuff first. Many thanks if you can help me.

 

[Atlas147]

Depends on what you'd like to back up, if you want to do your whole drive then you need about 60GB as you have calculated. Some times you are able to compress your backups so that they take up less space. Another alternative that I do is that I back up only the important files but manually choosing which files I back up. This way the back up timings are not crazy long and I have all my important information.

The files I target are my downloads folder, Documents folder and my desktop. The 3 locations that I keep most of my irreplaceable files. The rest of the program files can be replaced just by downloading them again so I'm not too afraid of losing them

 

[frogboy]

You could give this a try to backup to your HDD it will even help you create a partition to backup to.

Freeware to Create Recovery Partition on Hard Drive | AOMEI OneKey Recovery Free

 

[Weebarra]

Depends on what you'd like to back up, if you want to do your whole drive then you need about 60GB as you have calculated. Some times you are able to compress your backups so that they take up less space. Another alternative that I do is that I back up only the important files but manually choosing which files I back up. This way the back up timings are not crazy long and I have all my important information.

The files I target are my downloads folder, Documents folder and my desktop. The 3 locations that I keep most of my irreplaceable files. The rest of the program files can be replaced just by downloading them again so I'm not too afraid of losing them

Thank you, all of my files are already backed up so i wouldn't really need to do them anyway. Although i am an amateur, i have tried to keep "my stuff" safe in case something happens to my laptop.

You could give this a try to backup to your HDD it will even help you create a partition to backup to.

Freeware to Create Recovery Partition on Hard Drive | AOMEI OneKey Recovery Free

I will have a look at that @frogboy but i think it might be a bit advanced for my skills (which are NIL basically) i will just get a bigger flash drive i think or another hard drive and keep it specifically for this.

 

[frogboy]

Thank you, all of my files are already backed up so i wouldn't really need to do them anyway. Although i am an amateur, i have tried to keep "my stuff" safe in case something happens to my laptop.



I will have a look at that @frogboy but i think it might be a bit advanced for my skills (which are NIL basically) i will just get a bigger flash drive i think or another hard drive and keep it specifically for this.

It is fairly simple to use, have a look at it all the same.

 

[Weebarra]

Well, it just goes to show that people like me shouldn't mess around with things. I decided on Aoemi purely because it looked simpler and i chose the "clone disc" option and it's totally wiped everything off of my external hard drive, i am gutted to say the least and feel so stupid for attempting this

 

[frogboy]

You should have done a system backup, it uses a whole lot less space. Sorry you have had problems.

 

[Weebarra]

Not to worry, it's done now. I had loads of space on i too but i guess i thought it would have kept all my stuff on it that i already had. I do have most of it backed up elsewhere so it's not a big problem, i just feel really stupid.

 

[Ink]

To minimise disk usage and time consumption, you can use Windows Disk Cleanup (admin) to clean up left over temp files from Windows Updates, any OS Upgrades and Old System Restore points.

Also CCleaner and other various light-cleaning tools to remove junk before creating a system image backup.

Some users can free up over 10GB.

 

[jamescv7]

It depends, usually you can conduct a File Backup for those important documents.

A system image needs an external HDD to store it properly (not on DVD or CD) so better remove some files that are unnecessary in order to free up.

Usually a system image including the OS recovery tools are around more than 100 GB+.

 

[Weebarra]

Thanks again for your replies, i have it sorted now. I have a system backup and will regularly back up the files from now on. Just need to google how to eject my hard drive safely as it has stopped doing it but i think that should be simple (even for someone like me)