Incremental images record any changes made since the last incremental image, so, in the case of a restoration, you need the full image and every incremental image created thereafter.

Differential backups keep a record of any changes made since the full image was created, so restoring a system requires the full image and the latest differential image. What's the difference between these types of image backups? A full image takes everything on the drive and is required to restore your system. This allows for multiple full, incremental, and differential backups to better keep your data safe. They both involve creating a backup of your hard drive, but there are significant differences that make them suitable for different situations.īecause of their compressed nature, multiple images can live on a single hard drive as long as there is space enough on the drive. Let's take a look at what exactly each process involves, and why you might want to use each technique.īefore you perform either process on your PC, it's good to know exactly what imaging and cloning are. But what about when you want to move your entire OS and your apps and your files to a new drive? That's where cloning and imaging come in. If you're swapping out a secondary drive, or one that doesn't contain your OS, you can technically just drag and drop the files you want to keep over to the new drive. Not only are SSDs faster, they're also more reliable because they don't have moving parts inside.

Solid-state drives (SSD) are becoming all the rage thanks to the significant speed upgrade they deliver over standard hard-disk drives (HDD).

Hard disk mirror image software