Ok have had the new computer for a few months now and after losing all our info on the old one would like to know what would be the best way to back stuff up.This Dell keeps asking me about an online backup is this worth checking out or am I better off with another hard drive or memory stick or disks.Then the next question is what do you backup,the whole hard drive or just certain files.Thanks for the help.Roger

 

External hard drive.

 

For simplicity, I use a second, internal hard drive and back up everything on the primary to it. I do this manually, about once a month. Absolutely critical data files (such as my Wife's business files) are backed up automatically once a day to the same drive and, as they change, online using Carbonite's backup program, which costs only $50.00/year as I recall.

- Jack

 

When you say everything,is it easiest to just to go to the C drive and back it all up.And if we are talking external hard drives are there brands that are better than others,and do they just plug into a usb port.

 

Buy an external hard drive (can be purchased for about $70 at 500GB) and an external hard drive enclosure (about $40). The external enclosure will have a USB hookup and will transfer all data to the second hard drive and back everything up. I did this after losing my last computer and almost all of the info.

I now plug it in every month or so and copy everything over...takes about 3 minutes to back up my entire 350GB hard drive with all music, pictures, files, you name it.

and I copy my C drive every 6 months or so...usually you can just drag and drop files into the new Hard Drive once its formatted (such as My documents folder, music folder or individual files). Dragging individual files has them backed up in about 2 seconds

I have this one:
http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-Black...970613&sr=8-46

It comes with all cables needed and will work with the new SATA style hard drives or the old IDE hard drives. Includes connector cables to switch between the two and a switch on the back to select which one you are using. Easily links to the desktop when plugged in via USB and you can leave it running as a slave drive when you are logged on or remove it and use as a storage backup device. And it lights up blue lights underneath when its on which is pretty nifty.

All you need to buy after that is your choice of harddrives which will plug into the inside of the case and hold it.

 

Western Digital and Seagate also make all-in-one (drive and enclosure) packages that plug right in via a USB cable. I've had good luck with those. Best Buy and stores of that ilk carry them -- 500GB storage for $50. Western Digital calls theirs "My Passport" brand.

 

You might also look into backup software that you can use to rec over in case of a total hard drive failure. The 2 best I know of are Acronis True Image and Genie Soft Backup Manager. It would also not hurt using something like these to Backup to either DVDs or Blu-Ray if you have a burner. The external hard drive is nice for data, but kit is much easier to drop in a DVD, boot up, and restore that way.
Having been burnt before, I do 3 full backups per month to blu-ray and also to external hard drives.
I would not use another internal as the power spike that could take out your main HDD could also take out your secondary. An external that is normally turned off is best.

 

I back up to an external hd once a month. I also backup all my pictures and childrens movies to dvd's every couple of months just for peace of mind incase the external takes a dump. (lost several thousand pictures on last computer that are now just gone) After doing all this it all goes into a fire and water proof safe.

 

If your internal drive is a Western Digital or Seagate, they both offer a free version of Acronis True Image. You can use it to back up the entire drive to any kind of external hard drive. I prefer building my own external drives with separate drives and housings for warranty purposes and ease of swapping drives in and out of the housings if necessary.

 

Ideally a bootable backup that is an exact bit-by-bit backup of the system drive is the way to go. Preferably with something that doesn't require software to access the files. This way if the drive fails you can pull that one out, throw the backup in as the main drive, then replace the bad drive and turn it into the backup.

I'm a Mac guy so I use ChronoSync to do exactly this.

 

My backup hard drive is a Western Digital 500GB hard drive...great prices and reliable.

 

When I said EVERYTHING, I meant just that. I am still using Win XP on all my computers, and have a program from Roxio (Backup MyPC) that does that. I've also experimented with the free program EASEUS ToDo Backup Home 2.0 and it does a decent job too.

One other program I have running is the free ERUNT, which does a registry backup every day. It has corrected problems for me now and then.

- Jack

 

Backup MYPC was a good product, developed long before it was part of Roxios crappy software package. It is no longer available and is not supported by Vista or Win 7. If the full version, it does allow for disaster recovery backups and backups to disk, CD/DVD, and tape.

Unfortunately the product Roxio has to take it's place is junk. Other backup software to stay away from is Norton Ghost. Back around version 10, Symantec turned it into crap also.

While Genie and Acronis are not free, they are well worth the cost. Depending upon the version, they do disaster recovery backups, along with normal backups, also either full, incremental, and differential. It also does backups of open files.
If you have Win 7, it also has backup software that will do disaster recovery or normal backups.

 

Acronis True Image can do exactly that - you use the "clone" option instead of the "image" option. As I said, it's *FREE* if you have a Western Digital or Seagate drive.

By the way, this is my housing of choice:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817182211

 

The RV mag my dad gets just had a review on the ClickFree backup ( Ext USB drive and software all in 1 setup ).

The S/W install was dirt easy, and after install once the computer did not have files open ( I was doing GPS upgrades for them at the time ), plug it in and it backs up everything.

Worth a look, could be very similar to the ones listed above.

The RV mag lists items for computers that are brain damaged material, and most are new / novice users and the easier the better.

http://www.clickfree.com/