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Hi,
Hard drive on PC 'popped' last night. Silly me, I've not backed up for a while, yes yes, I know. Not lost too much really, just some recent photos.
Quick trip to the shops this morning for a new hard drive and I bought myself one of those USB external portable storage thingys (500GB if that matters) so that I can put a copy of everything onto it and keep it safe.
My numpty question is, should I connect it to USB on back of PC (wires all neat n that) or just connect occasionally in order to backup to it.
It's up to you I guess. I keep mine plugged in permanently because I run software and things off it, so I'm accessing it a lot.
Shouldn't make a difference from a technical perspective. If your PC is proper ancient then you might have (say) USB2 ports on the back and slow USB1 ports on the front, but it's not really likely.
If you're using it as a backup and never unplugging it you could've saved a few quid and got an internal disk I suppose. A permanently connected backup will be ideal if you have a disk failure of your primary data store, but won't do you any good if your PC is stolen or your house burns down; depends what eventualities you're backing up against really.
Cheers, I put it in and I see it as another HDD in 'my computer' so I guess I can just leave it there?
So what's the usual thing to do? Just drop a copy of any music and photos onto it so I have a safe copy?
Yes, or you could use a little batch file to copy new files to it, or buy some software to automate it.
You can get 'one touch backup' type software. But yeah, that's pretty much what I do, I have a scratch drive that I periodically wipe and recopy my data disk across to en masse. It's not a hugely efficient way of doing things but my rate of change of data is quite low so it works for me.
but won't do you any good if your PC is stolen or your house burns down; depends what eventualities you're backing up against really.
Never thought of that TBH.
Really just backing up incase primary hard drives fails as it has done twice now since I bought PC in Aug 2009, First time at 18 month old, so out of warranty and again last night, just about 14 months after last time. I don't really have much stuff on it and have backed up to disc but not since xmas time ish.
It's a HP Pavilion slimline thing so no room for a internal drive. Not sure if I've just been unlucky or cos it NEVER gets turned off, just had screen saver set and left it on all the time. It's dead easy to put a new drive in as it came with the factory install discs but it's just a pain loosing stuff.
Fingers crossed it'll last this time.
If your OS is legit etc you can always install Microsoft SyncToy 2.1. for free to back up of your data. Very easy to use as I installed it yesterday. I used to use Syncback but since I rebuilt my PC I thought I would give SyncToy 2.1 a try after all they are roughly the same.
[url= http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52 ]Microsoft SyncToy 2.1[/url]
🙂
Thanks chewkw, I'm gonna give that a try, saves forgetting to back up 😳
why not use a drive image tool, so if your drive fails you can just reinstall the last working copy, you could do this say weekly or monthly and then also backup you more important files daily or what ever
dobo - Memberwhy not use a drive image tool, so if your drive fails you can just reinstall the last working copy, you could do this say weekly or monthly and then also backup you more important files daily or what ever
Yes, already have that as well from Win7 Backup & Restore function (Control Panel -> Action Centre -> maintenance -> Backup) for the operating system.
The SyncToy is good for data as you can access it like normal drive where as Backup & Restore function is more complicated to use and reserve for total rebuild of OS in the event of major HD breakdown.
The cheapest way to backup:
1) One internal or external HDD.
2) Microsoft Backup & Restore - for the operating system (imaging)
3) Microsoft SyncToy 2.1. - for the data.
You can use both but make sure you do not schedule them at the same time. Microsoft Backup & Restore can be set up to auto backup. You can do that with SyncToy too but need a little tweaking but not difficult using Task Schedule.
🙂
p/s: for imaging software this is apparently rather good. Might try this in future. Go for the Paid Version.
[url= http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp ]Macrium Reflect[/url]
pps: I learned the hard way after my HD died without backup. I lost 5 years of my life memory there and some very important too. I still have the HD and may get specialist to salvage it one day. Very expensive.
Another handy file backup tool is smartsync. Allows the creation of profiles including incremental backups and previous copy retention.
If you want to archive a cloned image paragon drive copy is pretty much set and forget.
Only caution id make with leaving a usb drive plugged in is to ensure it doesn't overheat. If its a basic fan less design make sure its not constantly spinning when not in use.
Disadvantage of leaving it plugged in might be that if you get a virus it could take out your backup drive as well...
Advantage is that if you set up a scheduled job for backing up then it'll always succeed.