What's the easiest way to back up?

Taffybiker

I use two hard drives in my PC, C (of course) and D. The D drive is mostly shared by other users on my home network so they can back up too, but a few folders are not shared: where I keep my payslips & bank statements for example.
My important documents are stored locally on drive C, but also copied to a private folder on drive D.

Is there an easier (or automatic) way of doing this?

What do you use to preserve your information?

timbim_2

synctoy, although it only handles one task.

john_s_2

Just a thought. If your computer gets stolen / damaged, you've lost your original and backup copies. Alternatively you could keep a backup on an external hard drive and keep that elsewhere (even a different building to be super-safe!)

I use a freeware application called Cobian Backup. And despite my well-intentioned advice above, my external hard drive is kept about 10 feet from my PC ;-)

Backing up is one of those subjects where you'll get a different answer for everyone you ask. A lot of the discussion boils down to the trade off between the ease of doing it (eg having the backup on the same PC, like yours) and the safety of the backup (eg keeping it in a bank vault).