Tech ? for computer hardware experts

[TheForce]

I completed another project today in just 4 hours that would have taken me over a week to do on the old computer. Funny reversal of roles now. The computer is waiting on me to do something as opposed to me waiting on the computer to update so I can make the next edit. Plus, because I could never play the timeline I would need to do a test render to see how something looked. Also, with these super high resolution file sizes, I had to create low resolution proxies which took a day. I like when the tools wait on me again.

On another subject-

In the past couple decades I have been creating clone SSD for my C drive every month so if I had trouble, I would just swap the drives and usually very little would be out of date on my clone. It was a good procedure to get back up and running when deadlines were looming.

Today, I now am using an m.2 C Drive on the MB for the operating system that can't be cloned with my cloning kit. So I need to get educated on another boot drive OS backup.

Is the windows backup and restore a good step? Say my m.2 stick goes dead or completely corrupted windows and won't boot up. What is the simple process to bet back up and running.
Do I use a Boot DVD I create now to boot the computer and then just restore to a new blank m.2 storage?
The current windows m.2 has 3 partitions. Does the restore create those in the restore process or do I need to manually set that up using the boot media or do I use the original windows 10 media?
Does the restore from my backup do all the installed software or do I need to reinstall everything again?

I know these are basic questions but it's been many years since I used the windows backup / restore process, back when it was very simple.

 

[harshness]

To my knowledge, Windows backup has never supported drive cloning and opted instead for a proprietary file format where it sounds like you just want a mirror image of your system drive. I think a cloner would be more like what you're asking for and perhaps could work in a single step. I use a "live" Linux-based solution, Clonezilla, to bit-for-bit copy to another drive or rip drives to a file and restore them to another drive. It optionally stores unused sectors. I've never tried it with m.2 drives though.

A booted Windows installation spends too much time writing things to the drive that may or may not be covered by Volume Shadow Copy (the software that is supposed to track files that have changed since you started the backup). If you watch the drive activity light, it is flashing every second or more when the computer is idle. A "live" solution boots from CD or flash drive and doesn't diddle the drive being backed up. There are also some easy to use Windows PE ("live" Windows) solutions like Aomei Backupper that may work with m.2 devices.

Have you looked into an m.2 to USB 3.0 adapter that wouldn't force you to do the process in so many steps (and not force you to open the machine and swap drives in and out)? I see where they can be had for under $15 and hopefully they don't require special drivers. I'm of a mind that swapping drives in and out on a frequent basis is more likely to do damage than something that would happen otherwise (through malware -- including Windows itself -- or hard component failure). I've damaged the connectors on a drive just swapping cables at least once.

 

[TheForce]

My former solution has been with Apricorn which is a USB to SATA cable. This is a smart cable because it is sensed by the software on a CD. I'm going to test a windows backup image and boot CD of my m.2 win 10 OS to restore to an SSD and see if I can run the computer on it ( will need to switch to the SSD boot in bios ). I have a couple of spare SSD drives to experiment with. If that works, I don't see why the procedure won't work with a new m.2 stick. It should work as it is the procedure in windows but this is more of a test for my peace of mind so when the time comes, I can say I've done this before. Plus I will keep the SSD around as a drive I can swap out to get me running until I buy a replacement m.2 if the current one gets damaged.

I created a boot CD and I am doing the weekly backups to my 4TB D drive.

The only reason I would need to open the computer and remove the heat sink covering the m.2 is if it is damaged and will not take a restore. The X299 ASUS MB has two m.2 NMVe slotts, the OS is under a heat sink that is removed with 3 screws. The second m.2 I will be adding the Samsung 960 when it arrives will be used for super fast video files in a project. I also have a PCIe card with a slower m.2.

According to the manual the covered m.2 slot 1 and slot 2 share the high speed connection. If the two m.2 sticks are of different speed then both will run at the slower speed. Best to put two matching sticks so you get the maximum speed from each.

________________________________

Did more usage testing with Adobe Premiere. There was concern by the engineers that adobe Premiere won't access more than 12 logical processors and that me spending for the i9-7980XE is a waste of money since 24 of the logical processors will sit dormant. But I have now confirmed that during timeline playback of 2 4K files plus a graphics playing at 30 fps, uses all 36 processors at near 90%. The RAM used was 35GB. The same for rendering. I plan on installing Edius 7.5, Vegas Pro v13, Magix, and Cyberlink Power Director over the weekend next. I have never run these on windows 10.

 

[TheForce]

Update-

Since I now have the new computer dedicated for video editing, my windows 7 computer can remain on the win7 Boot C drive. No more swapping to windows 10 SSD. Since remaining on win 7, ALL the problems I was having with index corruption on my data drives have ended. System freezing or BSOD are gone. Windows updates now also execute automatically too. Life's good!