Image-Based Backup Overview

An image-based backup is a backup type based on entire disk snapshots including data on disks, a system state, and all application configurations at the moment of backup. Backup data is kept in a single container called image.

With image-based backups, you can restore the operating system on your users' computers right from images as they were at the moment of the last image-based backup plan execution. Nowadays, the image-based backup plan is the most reliable way to back up everything on a computer. This backup type is the most efficient way to prevent possible consequences of system crashes that happen to occur on servers and workstations from time to time.

Image-based backup features are:

Flexible partition selection: all, system required, all fixed drives (new backup format only), or user selected partitions
Direct backup to cloud storage (no local space is required)
Hybrid backup (legacy backup format only)
Synthetic Full backup
GFS retention policy support (only new backup format)
Object Lock (Immutability) support (only new backup format)
Changed Block Tracking for image-based backups
Restore to dissimilar hardware
Restore directly from a cloud or USB flash drive
Restore of selected files and folders from disk image (Item-level restore)
Restore to Hyper-V or to ESXi host
Restore to Cloud (Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure VM)

Image-based backup is supported for:

Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2022
Windows 7
Windows 8
Windows 10
Windows 11

Required License:

Any (to learn more, refer to Backup Agent editions)