Other than businesses the only computer users I know who backup are those who have already suffered catastrophic data loss. Not until their hard drive fails and the photos of their children are lost forever do most people seriously consider backing up. Of course by then it’s usually too late since everything is lost but at least any future photos and important data will be safe.
So how do I backup my files you ask. Well it’s actually pretty easy and once you’ve set it up you can do it regularly with little or no hassle and I’ll show you a couple of simple ways you can do it.
There are many many ways that you can backup files and some are simpler than others. If you’re like most computer users you’ll have photos, music and documents on your computer that you’ll want to backup. You may also have emails and contacts if you still use an email program like Outlook. So first of all you need to know where all your files are before you can back them up. Normally pictures are in your My Pictures folder, documents are in your My Documents folder and music is in your My Music folder, however, you’ll want to make sure that you don’t have files anywhere else. To do this in Windows XP follow these steps (if you already know what files you need to backup you can skip ahead to Step 3 - Backing up with free software
Step 1 - Finding your files
Open My Computer and right click once on your C drive, from the menu that appears select search. You'll see the following window:-
In the All or part of the filename box you’re going to type in the types of files you want to search for rather than the names of the files.
To find photo files type in *.jpg, *.bmp
If you want you can copy and paste the bold text above directly from this page. This will find all files that are image files.
Once the search has finished you should sort your results based on the folders the files exist in. To do this just click on the View menu and select Details.
The In Folder column tells you exactly which folders your files exist in. Make a note of where the folders are (you’ll need the full path e.g. c:\documents and settings\your username\My pictures\etc.)
Once you’ve noted the details you can repeat the same steps for other file types that you may have. A quick way to search for all office files is to type in *.doc, *.docx, *.xls, *.xlsx, *.ppt, *.pptx,*.mdb. Once again you can copy and paste the bold text above to save typing it in.
If you still use a standalone email program like Outlook you’ll also need to backup the files that comprise your emails and contacts. By default Outlook stores these files in the following location:-C:\Documents and Settings\your username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
In general you should backup the contents of your My Documents folder which, by default, contains your pictures, music and documents. Of course each person that has their own login for the computer will have their own My Documents folder and each one may need to be backed up.
Step 2 - Backing up your files
Now that you know where all your files are stored you could copy them to a USB stick or burn them to CD, in fact before you set up any kind of automated backup solution that’s exactly what I advise you to do. Once you’ve copied the files (for simplicity the folders that contain them) to your backup medium of choice just double check that the files are accessible then label it up, store in a safe place and breathe a sign of relief: your data is safe!
Below I’ll show you what software you can use to make backing simple with just a few clicks of the mouse. I’ll also tell you about the various options for online backup of your files which gives you the added bonus of access to them from any Internet connected computer.
Backing up your files needn't be difficult or costly, in fact there's a wealth of free software and online backup solutions that are simple to use even for novice computer users.
The first step in backing up is working out what you want to backup and where the files are. See the above article for help with this.
The next step is deciding how you want to backup your files and where you want to back them up to.
Fortunately with the cost of storage at an all time low you’re spoilt for choice with options: USB sticks, CD/DVD writeable disks, external hard drives, another computer or online storage – all are viable options for backing up. Having said that each has pros and cons which I’ll describe briefly below:-
USB sticks
Using a USB stick is a great, cost-effective, solution for backing up smaller amounts of data. The cost of USB sticks at the time of writing (January 2010) is approximately: up to £10 for 4GB, up to £20 for 8GB and £20 plus for 16GB. While a USB stick may be great for small amounts of data (normally just documents), it isn’t such a good solution when you have lots of pictures and/or music to backup since they tend to take up a lot of disk space. An external USB drive is a far better option for this scenario.
CD/DVD writeable disks
Using CDs and DVDs to backup your data is perhaps the most cost effective storage medium, with a pack of 50 writeable DVDs, each able to store 4.7GB of files, costing in the region of £10 there isn’t a cheaper backup solution. However, you’d be wise to consider the drawbacks before embarking on this as your preferred method of backup. The main problem is that disks can get damaged and even if you store the safely so they don’t get damaged they will degrade and perish over time. If your files are important to you then backing up to writeable disk is not a long term backup solution.
External hard drive
If you have more than just documents to backup then an external hard drive is a great backup solution. With the cost of a 1TB (1024GB) external USB hard drive costing less than £70 you really can’t go wrong! Well, you can actually. The problem with external USB drives, USB sticks, DVD disks and other local backup solutions is that people tend to store the backup in the same location as the original data. Of course this is fine if the hard drive of the PC fails you can turn to your backup and recover your files but what if you have a break in, a house fire or other household disaster – your files: originals and backups may be lost forever! The solution is to take the backup device and store it at another location – perhaps your place of work or with a friend or relative.
Another computer
Many people have more than one computer in their household but few realise the opportunity this offers for backing up their files. Providing each computer has sufficient space each can store a back up copy of the files from the other. The easiest way to do this is to set up shared folders on each and copy the files over your network between the two. If you don’t have the PCs set up on a network then a USB stick can be used to transfer the files. Of course this method of backup still suffers from the ‘household disaster’ flaw but it is still a great way to backup if you have the hard drive space to spare.
Online backup services
Using an online backup service is becoming more and more popular for businesses and private individuals. It can offer an almost hassle free way to backup your important data giving you peace on mind in the process. Perhaps the hardest thing is choosing which service to use. If cost is an issue then you can’t do much better than free and Microsoft offers a whopping 25GB of free storage for anyone with a Hotmail or Live account. Simply navigate to www.skydrive.live.com and sign in. The interface for backing up your files could use a little work but there are add-ons, like Skydrive Explorer, that make access to your account even simpler. If you have more than 25GB to backup then there are some good paid for services such as Carbonite and Amazon’s S3 that may be for you. Online backup gives you the off-site storage that the other options above can’t provide so negates the ‘household disaster’ flaw, however, you’re trusting your files to a third party and have to be confident in their ability to look after your precious data.
My advice
Providing you do backup in one way or another your 90 percent of the way to making your data completely safe. For the final 10 percent.......well, if you want the 100 percent backup peace of mind my advice is to use both online backup and local backup. If you have files that you really couldn’t bear to lose then keeping a backup yourself and a backup online is a small inconvenience for that warm fuzzy feeling you get from knowing that those pictures of your children are safe forever.
One further piece of advice
Any backup plan is only as good as your ability to get back those files in the event of computer failure. I thoroughly recommend an occasional test to ensure that the medium you’ve used to backup your data is still in good working order and that you can get your files back. If the first time you try to get your files back is after your computer fails and you suddenly find that your backups somehow stopped working or the backup medium has failed all of your hard work will have been for nothing.
Free backup software
There are many different software solutions for backing up your files that any recommendation is always partly personal preference. This article is no different.
I have tried various software for backing up but There are two free programs that I find myself recommending to clients over and over again.
SyncToy
The first is a fantastic free Microsoft tool called SyncToy. SyncToy is so simple to use that even your grandmother will be able to use it! The principal with SyncToy is this: you set up a left folder top copy from and a right folder to copy to. This folder pair can then be configured to perform different types of backup or synchronisation.
The options are:-
-Synchronize takes the two folders and makes sure they have the exact same files. To do this, SyncToy may copy files in either direction and may delete or rename files in either folder.
- Echo looks for changes (new files, renames, deletes) in the left folder and makes them in the right folder (one-way sync).
- Contribute is like an Echo, but it does not delete any files on the right folder that may have been deleted on the left folder.
If you’re not too technically-minded then I highly recommend SyncToy for backing up. Get it from Microsoft here: SyncToy.
Syncback
Syncback is a more advanced backup tool for those with more geeky backup aspirations. It has simple and advanced settings however that make it accessible even for those who are only slightly geeky!
Syncback lets you define multiple scheduled backup jobs that you only have to set up once, allowing users to create specific backup jobs for certain folders or file types. You can control the way files are compared and selected for backup: the program comes with ready-made profiles to make the process as easy as possible. It's hard not to like that SyncBack doesn't use many system resources when working in the background, and backups can be set to export their logs to an HTML file for easy viewing. All in all, it's an excellent choice for home users and small businesses alike.
