Which is the best backup method?

S&M_Inc

Greetings to all,
Our daughter will be starting uni in September so I was pondering which is the best method of taking regular backups using Vista Basic?

Should she backup the My Documents folder or the whole Hard drive?

Which is the best medium to back up too an external hard drive or burning to rewritable DVD's?

Thanks for reading this far

S & M

MercilessKiller

Rewritable dvd's store a lot less but can be a lot safter than an external hard drive if kept in mint condition.

Personally I'd use an external hard drive like the Western Digital Mybook (300GB version from Ebuyer quite cheap). This has a "One touch backup" function which can be programmed to back up what you wish.

I would advise she did this every other night, and then disconnect it and keep it safe. I say disconnect because you don't want a disaster that effects the PC to effect the HDD

Tallymanjohn

She'll also find a USB pen drive/thumb drive to be invaluable to keep copies of current work that she can keep with her. There's no point in backing up the whole drive, especially with Vista due to it's size, just back up data which cannot be replaced - generally it's easiest to just back-up the 'My Documents' folder.

MercilessKiller

Backing up a whole drive might be a good solution if she's using applications which would be hard to replace due to whatever reason.... Using an application like Norton Ghost will allow image backups... but this is a bit OTT.

As tallymanjohn says, data backups are probs sufficient. A USB pen drive is good but easily lost. I suppose it really depends on the type of data she needs backing up?!

buglawton

Buy a usb connectable hard drive - around £50 nowadays - and use Microsoft's Synctoy software. It neatly backs up all NEW or CHANGED files only to the removable drive.

Email backup requires a slightly clumsier method depending on which email software is used, eg for MS Outlook: file > export > export to a file, type pst, choose your main email folder remembering to tick the 'include subfolders' box.

Also worth considering, use Xdrive, an over-the internet virtual extra disk drive. A bit fiddly to set up and not super fast, but same Synctoy method can be used to back up only new & changed items.

cwoodham

Remember that no hard drive lasts for ever. If you clone the whole drive now to an external drive with e.g. Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, you will have a backup drive that you can substitute for your first drive at any time.

Then back up just your data to the external drive on a regular basis. Keep your external backup drive in a separate location from your PC in case of disasters like a fire.

spud17

Use Synctoy from MS, I've started using it after reading this thread

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=475862

It can be set to run at suitable times using the Task Scheduler.

S&M_Inc

Thanks to all who've taken the time to reply.

S & M

dataclinic

Just out of interest you asked for the "best backup method", most of the suggestions above rely on your daughter manually backing up her data.

My observations from running my own backup company is that is it won't get done everyday if it requires a manual process, even in companies, a lot of IT Managers wing it when it comes to backup, and hope that it won't happen to them. Many struggle to change the tape everyday (again, a manual process), most don't test the tapes afterwards...

An external drive will stay connected to her computer 24/7 and not put away in a safe place.

Pen drives are good for transferring data between halls and uni, not for reliable backup.

DVD's will be done every blue moon because of the hassle, hardly anyone goes on their computer to do their backup!! Fact.

If we are talking about the "best backup method" then automated offsite backup is the best method in my opinion.

Little_John

dataclinic wrote: »

An external drive will stay connected to her computer 24/7 and not put away in a safe place.

Pen drives are good for transferring data between halls and uni, not for reliable backup.

DVD's will be done every blue moon because of the hassle, hardly anyone goes on their computer to do their backup!! Fact.

If we are talking about the "best backup method" then automated offsite backup is the best method in my opinion.

All very true.
Most backups are made now in the home just so the user doesnt loose their photos and documents, its a different story when it comes to a corporate backup where it is normally backing up a server or servers using tapes. Multiple users documents etc and the data of the accounts system, client database back office system everything that is mission critical.

A home user hates to loose their stuff but loosing photos isn't a disaster it will feel like it when it happens but you cant do anything about it. If a company looses their server drive then it normally is a disaster and could have legal consequences. That is why they spend 1000's of pounds on stupidly expensive tape drives and backup scheduling software and the tapes. 1 person usually in accounts if there is no IT dept gets the job of swapping the tapes and taking them home every night, others make use of fire resistant safes.

So what do you go for? I have an automated tape backup here it is over the top for a home I know but I got it for nowt Automated is the best option so CD/DVD isn't advisable the next best thing is a hard drive, it doesn't need to be external but an external dive can be added easily without pestering the IT guy down the street. set something running that copies everything you feel is important daily to the drive, I wont go in to the software as loads have already been suggested above and some have benefits that others don't. but they will do the job. The most important thing when it comes to making backups is that you check the backups occasionally its no good doing all this to discover that when you need it it hasn't been working or the device is faulty so check the status of the hard drive use scan disk or something similar even event viewer in windows will tell you any problems with the drive.

ohh and backing up email in outlook doesn't involve exporting the PST file, the mail is stored as a PST file already you just need to copy the file, it will only copy when outlook is closed so remember not to leave outlook open all the time.

martaaay

recommend external hard drive backup, there are also online solutions whereby you upload all the files to a service such as http://www.ibackup.com/. Of course this really helps if you have a fast connection but it's the ultimate protection as these files can then be accessed anywhere with internet access. The worst practice people do is leave the backup drive media right by their pc. If there was a fire or theft then chances are the backups would be removed/destroyed also making it a waste of time.

I'd also recommend she stores all work files in my docs and then simply backup that one folder. There is no need to backup every single program as these would need re-installing anyway (and will use loads more space/time to reguarly backup), just keep the installation CD's in a safe place.