Changelog is here: ubackup.com/changelog.html
Backupper, a very good image backup app, clones one or more disk partitions to a VHD [Virtual Hard Disk], which is a single file a little smaller than the used disk space shown for the partition in File Explorer Properties. Backupper can mount its VHDs so they appear as regular partitions in File Explorer, and files/folders can be copied from that mounted VHD. It also records the size of any partition you back up in that archive -- provided there's enough disk space, at default settings a restored backup will be the same size as the original partition. Incremental / differential backups only archive files/folders that have changed since the last backup, so the backup archive will be smaller, with the caveat that it's useless without prior backups. Scheduling backups so they happen automatically is IMHO best for partitions with data that changes regularly. Windows changes once, or optionally twice a month, while most software updates take a matter of minutes at most, so there's little to gain backing up the Windows partition more than once or twice a month. Being able to store a copy of your backup archives in the cloud is cool, *provided you have the upload bandwidth* -- many in the US for example have cable broadband, where uploading anything more than a few MB is impractical to say the least. Being able to encrypt your backups is nice, but the best way to protect them is to store them offline -- if malware like ransomware can see your backups, it's over. Win11 will let you set up a pair of mirrored hard drives in a USB drive dock with 2 bays -- for ~$25 + the cost of the drives, you have something similar to NAS with an identical copy of your files stored on both in case of a drive failure. And when it's not plugged into your PC/laptop, as far as malware is concerned, it does not exist.
Cloning disk partitions is cool, but be careful if there's more than one partition and the source & target drives are different sizes. You can be better off, and sometimes must handle the partitions individually, sizing the partition once it's in place. You may also need to handle partitions individually if you're switching from MBR to GPT. Also be aware that Windows boot loader is flaky... cloning every partition on a Windows system disk -- the Boot, System Reserved, Windows, and Recovery partitions -- *should* work, but the result will occasionally [rarely] not boot into Windows. It doesn't hurt to Google BCDBoot and be prepared to use it just in case. Note that if you change the physical location of the Recovery partition, e.g., change the size of the Windows partition so the Recovery partition comes sooner or later on the disk, Windows recovery may no longer work. Using the Command Prompt, type "reagentc /info" [w/out quotes] & press Enter to find out. OTOH if you've got a full backup you don't need it anyway, especially since the recovery stuff is iffy, and may or may not work.
Backupper lets you create a bootable USB stick -- when you boot to that USB stick a copy of Backupper automatically starts. You cannot replace [restore a backup] of one or all of Windows 4 partitions if Windows is running, and you'll also need to use it to restore a backup to a new drive if the old one fails. AOMEI may eventually fix it [they finally fixed the USB stick in Partition Assistant], but until they do you have to replace a file on the USB stick you create in Backupper so it'll work with Secure Boot enabled, which is the default on any current Windows device. Make a copy of C:\Windows\Boot\EFI\bootmgfw.efi, rename it bootx64.efi, and use it to replace the copy on the USB stick. *Usually* there's a hot key that you can press when the device is just starting from a power off state that will either cause the device to boot from a bootable USB stick or present you with a boot device menu, where you can select the AOMEI USB stick. *Sometimes* the screen will tell you what the hot keys are when a device is starting up, sometimes you'll have to look it up online, and sometimes you'll have to find it by trial and error -- at most it'll take 12 tries for F1 <-> F12. At any rate, make sure that you can boot to that USB stick, or a Windows To Go drive with Backupper installed, or your time & effort creating backups may be wasted.
For a *little* background, storage devices are divided up into partitions -- each hard disk, SSD, USB stick has at least one -- and software including Windows generally treats each partition as a separate, individual drive. Windows creates it's 4 partitions to keep stuff isolated, but you can use them to better organize your stuff, and make backing up / restoring data easier. Image backup software like Backupper deals with partitions -- you can backup/restore one or some or all partitions on a disk. While the syncing capabilities in Backupper deal with files & folders, when it clones a partition it ignores that stuff and just copies [clones] the ones and zeros physically stored on the hard disk / SSD. By default it only copies the data that's current -- when you delete a file the data's still there, but not referenced anywhere, which is why there's file recovery software -- but you can have it do a forensic or sector by sector copy to clone everything, so you can do things like run file recovery software on a restored sector by sector backup.
Many, probably most people do not back up their systems, which IMHO is why Microsoft gave Windows a Recovery partition, storing a minimal copy of Windows in a .wim image file, has Windows reset available from the special boot menu & in Windows Update, and bugs you to backup your docs and account settings to Microsoft's cloud. And all of that can work, or not -- it's far from foolproof -- while an image backup is as close as you can get to bulletproof. About the only problems you can have are usually caused by things like a misbehaving external drive storing the backup. And restoring Windows from an image backup is faster/easier than setting up a newly installed or reset copy of Windows.
