[SOLVED] How to confirm BACKUP of C DRIVE has been successful?

[shawnc]

First BACKUP of files in a month only took 30 seconds.
How does one confirm that a C Drive BACKUP of all files has been done successfully?
And that if you ever need to do a restore it will work correctly.
I've searched everywhere for what seems like something you would check every time and found nothing.
Settings under Backup just says Size of Backup: 50GB Last Backup: (current date/time).
I guess that means it's all good? I'd like to scan it and confirm everything is fine.
Using WD Elements 2TB External HDD.
Thanks!

 

[wpgwpg]

If it didn't report any errors, that probably means it's OK. However if you used the backup program in Windows, you should be aware that it isn't supported any more. I think a much better backup program is the free version of Macrium Reflect. There are others as well. I don't know about the Windows backup program, but with Macrium Reflect and others you can open the file they create and look at individual files & folders if you wish.

 

[ss202sl]

test the backup. It would be really bad to need it, and then find out the backup was corrupt or failed

 

[shawnc]

test the backup. It would be really bad to need it, and then find out the backup was corrupt or failed

Thx, How would you test a backup? I thought it was compressed and only used for a full restoration of Drive?

 

[shawnc]

backup program in Windows isn't supported any more.

Would it need to be supported? I assume by not supported you mean not getting updates?
If it just backs up the Drive, seems like it should continue performing that just fine?

Or do you mean it literally doesn't work anymore? Thx

 

[USAFRet]

First BACKUP of files in a month only took 30 seconds.
How does one confirm that a C Drive BACKUP of all files has been done successfully?
And that if you ever need to do a restore it will work correctly.
I've searched everywhere for what seems like something you would check every time and found nothing.
Settings under Backup just says Size of Backup: 50GB Last Backup: (current date/time).
I guess that means it's all good? I'd like to scan it and confirm everything is fine.
Using WD Elements 2TB External HDD.
Thanks!

What did you use to do this backup?
"50GB"...is that an appropriate size? What amount of data were you expecting? How much is currently consumed on your C drive?

The only real way to confirm is to recover from that backup.

 

[shawnc]

What did you use to do this backup?
"50GB"...is that an appropriate size? What amount of data were you expecting? How much is currently consumed on your C drive?
The only real way to confirm is to recover from that backup.

What is the best way to backup without compression on a regular schedule to an external drive? (skip everything below if this is the best option)

I'm using the standard native windows 10 "settings" Backup utility on a 1yr old computer.
People don't restore every backup they do, so....I guess people just trust it apparently, ...stunning to hear there's no way to verify a backup.

C Drive shows 146GB used (768 of 914GB avail). Backup size is 50GB, so if a compression ratio of 3x is normal, that would concur. Googling does not tell me what compression ratio to expect.

It sounds like I should just be Backing Up without compression so that I can access all the files anytime and thus able to confirm backup is successful.
So I would do that by "COPYING" , and select "only copy files that have changed"?
That's going to be time consuming and result in less frequent backups.

What is the best way to backup without compression on a regular schedule to an external drive?

 

[USAFRet]

What is the best way to backup without compression on a regular schedule to an external drive? (skip everything below if this is the best option)

I use Macrium Reflect.
The below link describes my backup process. It is to my NAS box, but could easily be done to an external drive.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[hang-the-9]

Thx, How would you test a backup? I thought it was compressed and only used for a full restoration of Drive?

Remove all the drives in the system, plug in a spare drive, run the restore on it. If this is a file only backup, then do a restore of the files to somewhere and compare the original to the restored backup.

 

[shawnc]

I use Macrium Reflect.
The below link describes my backup process.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

Greatly appreciated, Thanks Titan!