What are Mirror Image Backups?

A backup program or online backup service that creates a mirror image backup makes an unconditional backup of everything on the computer, including all installed software, personal files, the registry, and so on. , and consolidates it into a few files.

Due to the size of mirror image backups, they are usually stored on external hard drives, network drives, or other internal drives, but sometimes DVDs or BDs are also used.

The file type used to store a mirror image backup is usually proprietary to the backup program used, so they are different for each application. Sometimes no extension is used, but that doesn't mean it isn't already customized for the program that created it.

A mirror image backup is not the same as a regular file backup or clone backup.

How are Mirror Image Backups Different from Regular Backups?

A regular backup is probably exactly what you think of when you think of backed up files or a collection of folders with files, all backed up and ready to be restored whenever you need them.

Note: Some programs, like COMODO Backup, can do a regular backup like this, but it also allows you to save the backed up files to a file (ISO, CBU and others). However, this method of backing up to a file to store the data is not considered a mirror image, as the term is only used when creating an entire disk image, not just an image of selected files and folders.

A cloned backup (sometimes confusingly called a "mirror backup") is another type of backup supported by some programs. This type of backup takes everything from one drive and places it on another drive. It's a clean copy from one hard drive to another, and it's useful if you have an extra drive that you want to store your main files on.

After creating a cloned backup, you can simply replace the cloned drive with the current one to have everything as it was at the time of backup.

Like a clone, a mirror image backup saves absolutely everything that is on your computer at the time of the backup. This includes the operating system as a whole, including all important but hidden system files, as well as all your personal files, pictures, videos, documents, installed programs, temporary files... even files you might have in the Trash. recycling. .

Literally everything from the hard drive you back up is stored in the mirror image backup. Since the backup is stored in just a few files, you can save it to an external hard drive that you are actively using without compromising the backup files.

A mirror image backup is actually the same thing as a clone backup, but instead of copying the files to another hard drive in an easy-to-use way, the files are copied to one or more files, and very often to Compressed files, which are then merged with the original backup software must be restored.

Note: It is important to reiterate that a mirror image backup is like a mirror (clone) backup, but instead of copying the data to a new hard drive, it is copied to a file or files that can later be restored/copied onto a hard drive.

Some backup programs even support what's called a mirror image mount, so you can browse the files stored on it as if you were taking a regular backup. Some even allow you to copy specific files from the mirror image backup, but not all backup programs support this and most only allow you to "open" the image data when it's time to restore it (but doing that does not let you view the files until everything is restored and you can restart the operating system).

When Does a Mirror Image Backup Make Sense?

Creating a mirror image backup is clearly not beneficial in all circumstances. If you want quick access to your backups or need to copy all your files to another hard drive, then you don't want to create a mirror image of your data.

A mirror image backup is a nice touch when you want to ensure that your entire hard drive can be restored to the way it is at some point in the future. As mentioned above, this means the entire hard drive and all of its files, including junk files, deleted files, anything that might cause errors when opening... but also your normal working files like your documents, pictures, installed programs, etc.

Maybe you've collected a lot of programs and files over the years and it's just too much of a hassle to reinstall or download it all again. This is a good time to create a mirror image of the entire drive. If something happens to your existing drive, simply restore the image data to a new one.

Another time a mirror image backup is useful is right after the operating system is installed. Once it's installed on your hard drive, and maybe even after you've completely upgraded it and added your favorite programs, you can create a mirror image of that hard drive state so that you ever have to reinstall Windows (or any other operating system). system) you can just use mirror image backup restore and then start from there and skip all installation steps.

Software That Supports Mirror Image Backups

Mirror image backup is not a common feature in a backup program, as most applications back up files in a way that makes them easily usable after backup, which is usually not the case with a mirror image.

AOMEI Backupper is an example of a free program that can create mirror image backups. When you select this option in the program, an ADI file is created that contains all the data contained on the source disk.