Why Backup Hard Drive Windows 10/11
Backups are very important but you may never realize this point until you need one but don’t have one. In a computer, a hard drive like HDD or SSD is an important storage device that stores the Windows operating system, apps, files, documents, pictures, and more. To protect your PC, you may wish to create an extra copy of everything on the hard disk.
Or you plan to upgrade to a new computer and want to move all the contents over. In these cases, backing up the hard drive to another hard drive could be an excellent choice.
Then, how to create a hard drive backup in Windows 11/10? Continue reading to find some useful ways.
Option 1: Backup Hard Drive via Disk Image
In terms of disk backup, one optimal way is to create a disk image backup. This contains everything on the hard drive, and all the contents are compressed into an image file, which saves much disk space. Once computer accidents happen, you can easily restore the PC to an earlier state from the image backup.
To back up hard drives in this way, we advise using MiniTool ShadowMaker. This hard disk backup software is very flexible and can meet your many needs. You can run this PC backup software to easily backup files, folders, disks, and selected partitions. When it comes to “how to backup computer to external hard drive”, you should think of this software.
If you often create several new files, you can use it to configure a time point to automatically back up the only newly added disk data every day, every week, every month, or on an event instead of always creating a full backup for the entire hard drive. We call this – a combination of scheduled backups and incremental/differential backups.
Usually, you can choose to save the disk image file to an external hard drive, USB flash drive, network drive, etc. Now, free install MiniTool ShadowMaker on your Windows 11/10 PC for hard drive backup. Just tap on the download button and use the .exe file for the installation.
MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
See how to backup hard drive to an external hard drive:
Step 1: Connect an external drive to your PC, open MiniTool ShadowMaker and then click Keep Trial. This edition allows you to free use most features of this software for 30 days.
Step 2: In the Backup window, go to SOURCE > Disk and Partitions.
Step 3: Choose the hard drive you want to back up and check all the partitions. Then, click OK.
Step 4: Go to DESTINATION and choose an external drive to store the disk image file.
Step 5: Click Back Up Now to run the disk backup. The backup process will take some time and wait patiently.
Before the last step, you can make some advanced settings to the hard drive backup:
Backup Options: Go to Options and you can configure some settings under Backup Options, for example, choose an image creation mode, select a compression level, add a comment to the backup, enable email notification, etc.
Backup Scheme: You can choose a scheme to create full, incremental, or differential backups and delete certain old backups at the same time to manage disk space.
Schedule Settings: After enabling this feature, you can set a time point in Daily, Weekly, or Monthly to back up your PC automatically or choose an event for schedule backups.
In addition to MiniTool ShadowMaker, some of you consider using Backup and Restore (Windows 7) to backup hard drives. After choosing Let me choose, all the partitions with a drive letter are listed and you can select the drives on your hard disk. But, you may notice that some individual files in the folders are not included – the disk backup is not complete. Thus, we strongly recommend running MiniTool ShadowMaker.
MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
If you look for “how to backup computer to external hard drive”, this hard disk backup software helps you a lot. You can choose files, the Windows system, the entire disk, or some partitions, select an external drive as a path, and then start the backup.
Option 2: Backup Hard Drive via Cloning Disk
Besides creating a disk image, you can clone a hard drive to another hard drive to transfer everything for a backup. To do this task, run MiniTool ShadowMaker which also supports cloning HDD to SSD for a disk backup/upgrade.
This hard drive cloning software offers a feature called Clone Disk. It helps you to easily clone a hard drive, SD card, USB flash drive, etc. to another one. It enables you to perform a sector-by-sector cloning or only copy the used sectors.
This cloning feature requires you to pay for it if you need to clone the system disk. Get Pro Edition or higher. To clone a non-system disk, try MiniTool ShadowMaker Trial Edition.
MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Now, let’s see how to backup hard drive to an external hard drive via disk cloning:
Step 1: Launch this hard disk backup software and register it or click Keep Trial. To clone a system disk, you can also register it before starting the final cloning process.
Step 2: Tap on Tools from the left pane and click Clone Disk.
Step 3: In the new window, click Options to choose a clone mode and disk ID. By default, MiniTool ShadowMaker uses New disk ID (to boot the PC from the cloned disk) and Used sector clone. Next, select the source disk and target disk, then click Start to begin the cloning process.
After some time, you finish the disk cloning, and all the contents are backed up to your external hard drive.
From the above paragraphs, you learn “how to backup hard drive to external hard drive in Windows 10/11” or “how to backup computer to external hard drive” via disk imaging and disk cloning. To know the differences between these two backup options, you can refer to our previous post – Clone vs Image: What Are the Differences? Which One to Choose.
Next, we will guide you on the external hard drive backup, how to backup Mac to external hard drive, and how to backup iPhone to external hard drive.
How to Backup External Hard Drive
Computer backup for the internal disk is important while external hard drive backup is also significant. An external hard disk also has a lifespan, and it may malfunction and suffer from performance issues due to natural wear and tear. To keep data safe, you may buy a new external disk and transfer data from the old external drive to the new one.
Also, you sometimes format your external hard drive for other usage. So how to keep data secure? The answer is backing this external hard drive before formatting. Next, let’s see how to back up your external hard drive in 3 options.
Option 1: Run MiniTool ShadowMaker
As mentioned above, this backup software can easily back up several kinds of data including files, folders, documents, videos, music files, and more from a computer to an external hard drive. Also, you can back up data from an external hard drive to another hard drive (internal/external) or USB flash drive. Get its Trial Edition for a trial by tapping on the download button.
MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
See this guide on how to backup external hard drive to another external hard drive:
Step 1: Connect an external disk and run MiniTool ShadowMaker Trial Edition.
Step 2: Go to Backup or Sync, tap on SOURCE,and choose the files or folders on an external hard drive you want to backup. Then, go to DESTINATION to choose another external hard drive.
Step 3: Tap on Back Up Now or Sync Now.
Option 2: Copy Files to External Hard Drive
One of the simple ways to back up your external hard drive is to transfer files from this disk to another hard disk. This could be a good option if you store a small number of files. If you have abundant files on the external hard disk, don’t use this way since the process takes much time and it may get stuck.
Step 1: Connect both the old and new external disk to your computer.
Step 2: Open the old disk and use Ctrl + C to copy all the disk data.
Step 3: Open the new disk and press Ctrl + V to paste the data you have copied.
Related article: 7 Methods to Fix Copy and Paste Function Not Working
Option 3: Backup External Hard Drive to Cloud
In addition to local backup, you can also consider cloud backup. OneDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive are frequently used cloud storage services. You can choose to back up files from your external hard drive to one of these cloud services. You can sign in to the web version and choose the files or folders you want to back up to upload.
How to Backup MacBook to External Hard Drive
After knowing how to backup hard drives (internal/external) in Windows 11/10, let’s focus on Mac backup. Some of you may use a Mac and want to know how to backup Mac to an external hard drive.
Time Machine, the built-in backup tool could help you a lot. It can let you automatically back up your files including email, apps, music, photos, and documents to an external hard drive or USB drive. Now, go to the Apple menu, click System Preferences > Time Machine, choose an external hard drive, check Back Up Automatically, and the backup starts.
How to Backup iPhone to External Hard Drive
If you have an iPhone and want to back up data on the phone to an external hard drive, the ways are not complicated and you can do this by following our previous post – How to Backup iPhone to External Hard Drive on PC & Mac.
What You Get
Hard drive backup is significant and if you don’t know how to back up hard drives (internal and external disks), this tutorial can help you a lot. Here you can find corresponding ways for hard drive backup. Also, how to back up Mac to an external hard drive and how to backup iPhone to an external hard disk are introduced. Take action by following the complete guide when needed.
Backup Hard Drive FAQ
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Vera is an editor of the MiniTool Team since 2016 who has more than 7 years’ writing experiences in the field of technical articles. Her articles mainly focus on disk & partition management, PC data recovery, video conversion, as well as PC backup & restore, helping users to solve some errors and issues when using their computers. In her spare times, she likes shopping, playing games and reading some articles.