To back up Windows volumes as images, install the Image Plug-in with the 64-bit Windows Agent. Unlike the Windows Agent, which enumerates and backs up individual files and folders during a backup, the Image Plug-in sequentially backs up all blocks on a volume. Because backups with the Image Plug-in require significantly less processing than backups with the Windows Agent, the time required for a backup can be significantly reduced.
After the first “seed” backup of a volume, in which all data from the volume is sent to the vault, the Image Plug-in uses Changed Block Tracking to determine which blocks have changed. In subsequent Image backups, the Plug-in only reads and backs up changed blocks to the vault.
When creating an Image backup job, you can select specific volumes to back up, or create a Bare Metal Restore (BMR) job that backs up all volumes, partitions, and data required for restoring a system to new hardware. You can also back up data on Windows storage spaces. See Add an Image backup job.
Note: The Image Plug-in does not back up or restore the configuration of Windows storage spaces. In a disaster recovery, you can configure storage spaces manually, and then restore volumes to the storage spaces.
You can restore entire volumes and specific files and folders from Image backups. See Restore Windows volumes from an Image backup and Restore files and folders from an Image backup. You can also use the System Restore application to restore systems from Image Plug-in BMR backups to new hardware. For more information, see the System Restore User Guide.
Using Image Plug-in version 7.5 or later, you can back up volumes with SQL Server database files. This option creates application-consistent database backups, so that separate SQL Server Plug-in jobs are not required. You can then mount these safesets, and restore database files from the backups. See Add an Image backup job and Restore SQL Server database files or objects from Image backups.
You can use the Image Plug-in only on supported 64-bit Windows operating systems with the NTFS file system. The Image Plug-in is not supported with ReFS file systems. The Plug-in supports both UEFI and BIOS, and MBR and GPT disks. For a complete list of supported platforms, see the Windows Agent release notes.