What is a backup to a "virtual container"

Looking in the help section, I didn't see this described.

Ben

Please refer to our knowledgebase entry "Archive formats".

Thanks for the hint: I've added a reference to Virtual Containers. This term had not been mentioned in the article so far.

That help page says

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We create a pVHD file with dynamic size and then perform a copy of the selected items (HDD, partition or files/folders) to this file.

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So it creates a file of dynamic size. How is that good or bad for me? Looking at the main menu, I don't see any other backup options. Is there some way to backup not using a virtual disk?

Attachment 791

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This option is great for virtualizing purposes, but certain backup features like password protection or file splitting are not available then.

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Why is it great for virtual machines? If I'm not using a virtual machine, then I shouldn't use this?

So a "virtual disk" is just a backup file containing everything backed up. Where you can do a later incremental backup and it gets written to the same backup file (er, virtual disk).

Looking at https://www.pcworld.com/article/3203...on-review.html it says:

"What’s the big deal about virtual hard drives? Windows itself will mount VHD files, so you can grab files off of a VHD with any PC, not just a machine with Backup & Recovery installed. You can also attach a VHD file directly to a virtual machine and use it there. It’s convenient for users in a number of ways a proprietary format is not."

So that's a really cool advanced feature, but as a new user, I just want to do a backup. If a virtual hard drive is the way to do it, fine, but I shouldn't have to care about the implementation and industry standards for virtualization. The home/express screen should just have the options:

* Make a full backup
* Make an incremental backup (defaulting to the same VHD as the last backup)
* Create a bootable recovery disk
* Restore selected files (defaulting to the most recent backup as source)
* Full restore (defaulting to the most recent backup as source)

Well, actually, looking at version 17, the menus are much close to my suggestions. Never mind.