Surface free space and recovery; Can I save recovery to cloud and USB?

[hamish]

Hi guys,

I've recently got my first Surface 2, it has replaced my android tablet and has so far been amazing!

I noticed that when I did a factory reset on my 32GB model I was left with around 18GB of free space, after a few days and minimal app downloads that has gone to 11GB of free space. My understanding is that the recovery takes a considerable amount of space.

Now I know you can save the recovery to a USB, but if that USB were to get lost or corrupt or something, can I save the same recovery file to my Cloud storage for later access? Doesn't necessarily have to be OneDrive as I have more space on my Dropbox which I never use.

So can I save the recovery on the cloud, and then if I do lose the original USB, make a new recovery USB with the recovery I have in the cloud?

Thanks

 

[GreyFox7]

Recovery is already built into the cloud...
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en...ervice-and-recovery/downloadablerecoveryimage

 

[hamish]

So are you saying there's no point me in downloading the recovery to a USB and then putting the file in the cloud, as it will always be available through Microsoft in the cloud?

 

[GreyFox7]

So are you saying there's no point me in downloading the recovery to a USB and then putting the file in the cloud, as it will always be available through Microsoft in the cloud?

Yes, although I have no inside information regarding what MS may do next it seems unlikely they would remove this for a long time but I make no warranties expressly or implied.

 

[hamish]

That's a good point. In that case, do you mind explaining, or anyone else for that matter, how to make the recovery then upload it onto my own cloud provider in case Microsoft removes support for this?

 

[GreyFox7]

Create Recovery USB
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/storage-files-and-folders/create-a-recovery-drive

Then use an imaging tool such as Macrium Reflect to make an image. How you save it is a choice I leave to you ...

 

[hamish]

Create Recovery USB
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/storage-files-and-folders/create-a-recovery-drive

Then use an imaging tool such as Macrium Reflect to make an image. How you save it is a choice I leave to you ...

Thanks.

Can I also then upload the image I create to a cloud service and then re-download it onto a bootable USB? How can I make the USB bootable?

 

[jnjroach]

Thanks.

Can I also then upload the image I create to a cloud service and then re-download it onto a bootable USB? How can I make the USB bootable?

Make the Recovery Image from the device directly to USB no cloud needed, the Surface will handle the bootable part for you.

 

[hamish]

Create Recovery USB
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/storage-files-and-folders/create-a-recovery-drive

Then use an imaging tool such as Macrium Reflect to make an image. How you save it is a choice I leave to you ...

Make the Recovery Image from the device directly to USB no cloud needed, the Surface will handle the bootable part for you.

Thank you for your replies.

I'll try and make myself a bit more clearer, sorry for any confusion caused.

I'm worried about free space on my surface as I understand the recovery part takes a good 7GB of storage away. Now I understand you can create
a recovery USB, but i am worried I would lose this USB or it could go corrupt. Therefore, can I take the image of the recovery USB and save it to my PC hard drive/Cloud storage/NAS drive etc? Could I then re-create a bootable recovery USB using the same image I have backed up in case my original recovery USB goes missing?

I understand Microsoft also provides the same image online but I am worried in the future I may lose this support.

Hopefully this is a bit clearer now. Thank you for taking your time out to help me.