Posted: 2/16/2007 5:34:49 AM EDT
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OK, I admit it. I've never backed up anything on my personal PC. I'll do penance and get right with the PC gods. What's the simplest, most offective way to back-up a general use home computer? This is a WinXP Home unit with one 80 gig hard drive and a CD burner. There is a separate user account for each family member. Recommendations? Need more info? Thanks! |
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A good starting point is to just get an external hard drive and use some backup software that can be automated/scheduled. I use the paid version of SyncBackSE but they have a free version that you can pick what to back up and set it up on a schedule. Get it here: SyncBackSE |
I agree, but it all depends on what you are backing up and what you are planning to do. |
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See, that's the thing. I don't know how to set up a backup "strategy". Do I mirror the whole hard drive? Do I just set it to back up certain files? If so, what files? User files? All image files and Word, Excel, etc.? Once I do the first back-up, what's the deal for subsequent back-ups? I'm really ignorant here, so be gentle! 
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what programs do you use. word quicken, do you store pictures on the comptuer, do you need your favorites for your browser ? how do you check email. outlook, outlook express, eudoro ? i store the majority of my music, pictures and data in ONE FOLDER on my system its called downloads. at work its called DRIVERS. within that folder is hundreds of other folders. pictures, vidoes, arfcom, mp3's. etc. if you store it all in one folder its much easier to backup. i backup to my samba server (just a machine running fedora 6 running samba) all i do is copy it over the network to the other system. that way i have a copy on both systems. i update it every couple days or weeks.. purchased stuff programs receipts, payments are all written to cd-r's. then put in a fireproof safe in my closet several companies make one touch backup devices. where you install some software THEN plug in the drive. tell the software what folders you want to back. then you press a button and it backks it up to a external drive. thats another option |
You don't need to. It really depends on how many CD's you want to use... AND how much time you want to spend in case of a loss of data. For example, if you back up the whole drive as an image, and if the hard drive does die or some other problem occurs, you can get to a running computer quickly. Just restore the hard drive image, which would include your operating system and all of your files. On the other hand, if you only back up your data files (images, music, docs, etc), and the scenario happens, you'll have to load the OS from your windows CD, then start installing all of your programs again, change the settings to how you like them, and then copy your backed up data to the drive to the locations they belong.
This is really up to you. You could try a few backup backing up only a certain set of files, to check performance and see how many CD's it will take. Then you can adjust and add files or remove them as necessary. BUT keep in mind, does cutting 2 hours out of a backup process out weigh the idea of losing some important data in the event that something happens to the drive?
Totally up to you... Depends on how much you change your files. For example, lets say you backup all of your photos and images at the start of the month. If you don't really add or delete that many photos or images during the month, a full backup of those items on a monthly basis might not be needed. On the other hand, if you have files that you change frequently (thesis paper for a masters degree, for example), you might want to back up that stuff more frequently. You might want to get something like this. You could run a backup software with a set list of files or directories to backup and then just point it to the external drive to store the backups. I'd suggest getting something like an external hard drive, rather than using CD's... you'll get tired of swapping out CD's really quick on large backup jobs. -d |
Sorry, I was out of town. I have Nero and Windows Media Player to burn CDs. |
The hard drive is nowhere near full. I like the idea of copying the whole hard drive so I can get it back up and running quickly. Once I do that, is there a scheme whereby I can do an incremental back up that will only copy the stuff that's changed? Or, does it just make more sense to back up the whole hard drive every month or so? |
| If you like the idea of copying the whole hard drive, then your best bet is what others have suggested. Get an external USB 2.0 Hard Drive (less than $100 for 80-100 GB size wise) and either Norton Ghost or Acronis Disk Director. Make a mirror image of your hard drive once a week onto the external hard drive. Then if god forbid something happens to your computer then you can usually restore from a bootable CD and your backup image file. Doesn't take very long to restore it, either. |
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I use Ghost to make a backup of my system drive and I save it to a portable USB hard drive. Which has images from my other computers on it as well. Easy to get my system back up and running. Typically it takes under 40 mins to put everything back to normal using Ghost. -d |