AOMEI Backupper 
System Backup vs Disk Backup: Key Differences and Operation Guide
You can learn the difference between system backup and disk backup so you can know how to choose the more suitable one. You can also learn the easy method to do system backup or disk backup.
By Rosie Updated on January 21, 2025
In today’s digital world, safeguarding your data is more important than ever. Whether you're upgrading your hardware, protecting against system failures, or recovering lost files, backup solutions are essential. Two popular options are system backup vs disk backup. But what’s the difference? Which one is right for you?
This guide will help you understand these two types of backups, their benefits, and how to perform them using reliable software like AOMEI Backupper Standard.
System Backup vs Disk Backup: Which One Is Right for You?
Many users don't know whether they should choose system backup or disk backup. You can read on to learn the difference between them and then choose either system backup or disk backup according to your own needs.
What Is a System Backup?
A system backup creates an image of your computer’s essential partitions, including:
- The system partition (where your operating system resides).
- Other system-related partitions, such as the boot partition and reserved system files.
When a system backup is performed, it ensures that your operating system, settings, and system data are secure and recoverable in case of problems like crashes or corruption.
What Is a Disk Backup?
A disk backup is a comprehensive backup of all partitions on a selected disk. This includes:
- Your operating system stored on disk.
- Installed software, applications, and personal files.
- Games, media, and other data stored on the disk.
Disk backups are ideal if you want to create a complete replica of your disk for restoration or transfer to a new drive.
Key Differences Between System Backup vs Disk Backup
Below are the key differences between system backup and disk backup, read it will help you decide which method best suits your needs.
| Feature | System Backup | Disk Backup |
|---|---|---|
| What It Backs Up | System partition and related partitions. | All partitions and data are on a disk. |
| Use Case | When you need to restore your OS quickly. | When replacing/upgrading an entire disk. |
| Backup Time | Faster due to smaller data size. | Slower because it backs up everything. |
| Storage Space Required | Less space is needed. | More space is required for the complete disk. |
If you’re looking to quickly restore your operating system, a system backup is sufficient. On the other hand, if you’re upgrading your hard drive or need to preserve all data, choose a disk backup.
The Best Software for System Backup and Disk Backup
When you need to perform a system backup or disk backup, you need to choose the safe and reliable backup software, such as AOMEI Backupper Standard, which not only helps you backup your system or disk for free, but also provides various backup functions to protect your data in all aspects.
AOMEI Backupper- Scheduled backup: This software allows you to set scheduled automatic system/disk backup on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, so you can always keep the latest backup version of your system/disk.
- Multiple backup methods: You can choose to perform your backup tasks with full backup or incremental backup methods. Incremental backup will only backup the changed parts, thus this method will help you to save backup time and storage space.
- Different compression levels and backup modes: You can select the compression levels (High/Normal/Low) or use its Intelligent sector backup mode to help you greatly reduce the size of system/disk image files and backup time.
- 2 backup services: It supports Microsoft VSS and AOMEI backup services, so it can ensure that your backup task will not be interrupted midway.
- Different paths: You can backup your system/disk to different destination locations, such as local disk, external disk, HDD, SSD, USB drive, NAS, etc.
- Various systems: It supports all Windows operating systems, includingWindows 7/8/8.1/10/11/XP/Vista, etc.
100% SecureHow to Protect Your Computer with Backup
Next, you will learn how to protect your computer with backup. This article will introduce the two backup types in turn. So how exactly does AOMEI System Backup vs Disk Backup? You can keep reading for more details.
How to Perform System Backup
Step 1. Download AOMEI Backupper Standard with above button, install and launch the software. You can click Backup > System Backup.
Step 2. You can modify the Task Name to distinguish it from other backup tasks. The software will select the system and boot partitions by default as the source. Please select a destination path for your system.
- Notes:✎...
- Schedule: You can set the fixed intervals to run the system backup task automatically such as daily, weekly, and monthly event trigger or USB plug-in.
- Schemes: You can select a backup scheme and it will help you save the target disk space by deleting the older backups. This feature is supported by the professional version or higher versions.
Step 3. Confirm all your operations and click Start Backup to perform the system backup.
How to Perform Disk Backup
Step 1. Open AOMEI Backupper Standard and click Backup > Disk Backup.
- Notes:✎...
- Except for System Backup and Disk Backup, it also provides Partition Backup and File Backup, you can choose them if you need.
Step 2. Click Add Disk to choose the disk you want to backup.
Step 3. You need to select the destination for your disk backup and then click Start Backup.
Summary
This article shows you the difference between system backup and disk backup as well as how to easily perform system backup or disk backup with the best free backup software AOMEI Backupper Standard.
Backing up a system or disk can effectively protect data, and you can restore it with a backup image when the system or disk becomes unusable. This software also provides various backup functions, such as scheduled backup, incremental backup, etc to help you backup your system or disk better.
Besides, if you want to rescue a computer that can't boot or restore a system to a computer with different hardware, its Universal Restore feature will be very helpful. You can download this software to explore more useful features.
