I have not been backing up my PC properly in the past. (yeah yeah - I know...) It is time I bought a new External HD and started to do this properly, and thought I would ask the learned people here.
SA Community -
What is the best method for backing up a PC?
I have seen the latest WD Externals have a back-up program already loaded in. Anyone here used it? I have read some bad reviews.
Or should I go with a specialized backup program like Nova Backup?
What External HD's are recommended? WD, Seagate.....etc, etc...????
Thanks to all suggestions and input in advance.
i guess you can use some special software if you wanna back up an image of your whole drive…
i don’t do this but I’m sure you could google it and find a good program to do it. probably a million of em.
i usually just back up my important stuff. files, blah blah blah.
2nd thing that is good 2 do is to keep all your programs on a separate drive from windows.
i just recently bought a new motherboard & CPU and I had to reinstall win 7. luckily for me tho I had all my programs on a 2nd hard drive, and all my files on my external. so it didnt make a difference to me. organizing storage is just as important as backing stuff up.
Hey,
The best method is to not use an external hdd at all. The problem with external hdd is they often end up sitting next to the PC they are backing up, and there are a lot of scenarios where you lose both (fire, flood, theft etc)
Take a look at online backup, these two are a good start:
http://b4.crashplan.com (I use this one)
They both charge a yearly fee for unlimited backup, you set what you want to backup and when you want it to run (I run mine overnight so that it dosen’t affect my Internet fair usage amount and doesn’t slow down my Interent usage). The one downside to this is the initial backup can take a long time. It is best if you have a lot of data to select an area and let it complete before adding the next. But once the initial backup is done it only needs to backup bit level changes to the files.
The best thing is all you need is the username and password and you can access all your data.
Oh also to answer your questions. I have used the WD backup software and I didn’t like it but I do really like the drives themselves.
If you want to take an image of your PC then trueimage is really great and when everything is running well it is a good idea.
If you go the extrenal hdd route I would just use the Windows vista or 7 backup program built in.
Makes I like in order (best at top):
WD
Seagate
Iomega
I’ve got 4 internal hard drives, one with the OS and programe files and audio stuff, one for games, one for movies and one for back up. I only back up my audio stuff however. I just use plexus sata to usb cables if I need to take a drive elsewhere.
Cheers guys - all good points.
I’m on XP - so I have to go one of these routes.
I’m going to look more into the online backup. If it isn’t too much per year - it may be the way to go.