The Best Way to Backup Raspberry Pi SD Card in Windows

The case: need to backup Raspberry Pi SD card in Windows

When it comes to SD cards, many users will think of Raspberry Pi SD card. It is popular with users because of its reasonable price and optimum performance. Usually, the SD card is used to store large amounts of data.

“Hi, I have built a Pi and put some software on it. I'd like to make an image of - so instead of requiring a flash of an SD and then installation and configuration. I would only need to run one step. Is this possible? And what tool would be best? I have WIN32DiskImager, but I think it only let me push images out to the SD card.”

This real case comes from Reddit. Backing up Raspberry Pi SD card is a crucial task that you should do it frequently, especially if your data change often. Why need to do a disk backup of Raspberry Pi SD card? There are two main reasons.

• Raspberry Pi SD card may sometimes simply stop working due to a number of reasons: overheating, cable connection failure, and energy supply issues, etc.

• Upgrade to a new larger Raspberry Pi SD card. If you run out of the space of the Raspberry Pi SD, you may need to replace the old one with a new larger SD card.

Image Raspberry Pi SD card with the best freeware

To create a Raspberry Pi SD card backup, you need a powerful freeware – AOMEI Backupper Standard. This freeware supports all brands of SD cards like SanDisk, Samsung, and Transcend, etc. Besides, it works great with Windows 10/8/7, Windows Vista and XP.

With this useful software, you can backup SD card to computer, network, cloud drives, and external hard drives, etc. The most important thing is that you can backup multiple SD cards at the same time. 

What’s more, many advanced settings can be supported by this freeware. You can enable email notification to see if the operation is finished successfully. Also, you can backup Raspberry Pi SD card at a fixed time, including daily, weekly and monthly.

It is worth mentioning that the backup process won’t interrupt your work. You can do your work without any concern! By the way, the easy steps and user-friendly interface are also praised by a lot of people. Now, you can download this freeware to have a try. Then, see detailed steps below.

How to Backup Raspberry Pi SD card in Windows step by step

Before you do, you need to connect Raspberry Pi SD card to the PC.

Step 1. Install and launch this freeware.

Step 2. Click Backup and Disk Backup subsequently.

Step 3. The Task Name can be modified by your needs. Select the Raspberry Pi SD card as source disk.

Step 4. Select the destination path. Then click Start Backup.

Notes:

• In Step 4, you can click Options to choose General, Compression, Splitting, Intelligent Sector, VSS and Other. If you don't want others to access your backup image, you can create an encryption backup (supported by AOMEI Backupper Professional) by clicking General.

• You can click Schedule in Step 4 to backup Raspberry Pi SD card automatically. For schedule settings, you can choose Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Event triggers, USB plug in or Real-time Sync. The last three features are available in paid version. You can upgrade to the advanced version to enjoy these practical functions.

• You can click Scheme in Step 4 to delete older backups automatically (in paid version).

• You can go Home > the Disk Backup > Restore to do a disk restore later.

• It is recommended that you use file sync to backup your data, if the Raspberry Pi SD card is only used to store files or folders. Compared to files backup, files sync would not create image file. Thus, you can view your contents at any time.

• AOMEI Backupper Standard also allows you to clone Raspberry SD card safely.

Summary

AOMEI Backupper Standard can help you backup Raspberry Pi SD card in Windows 10 easily and efficiently. It is suggested to backup your data frequently with this freeware. With this freeware, you also can transfer files from PC to SD card, clone SD card to larger card, recover files from formatted SD card.