Image-level backups, also known as bare metal recovery (BMR) or cloning your machine, do involve creating a snapshot of your data, but it’s a vastly more detailed image than the snapshots most people refer to, as you’ll see below.Ĭreating a snapshot, also sometimes called a storage snapshot, is like taking a picture of your server data at one specific moment in time.

Along with your files, it saves everything else, including data used in applications, the operating system, preferences and settings, patches, and more-all in one recoverable file.

This method is used most often in enterprises with more complex infrastructure and massive volumes of data. It’s simple and straightforward, until you have multiple physical servers or virtual machines. This entails selecting which files and folders on your drive to save. There are two main methods of backing up your data: This copy can-and should-be saved in a separate location from your original data, so you can use it to restore systems in the event of data loss due to human error or corruption. A backup is essentially a standalone copy of all your business and account information, including application data, back-office files, and product specifications.

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