The computer has become a valuable object today, not for its commercial value, but for the amount of data that is stored in it. Who works with the computer always needs it to be fully functional and to keep the documents as long as possible, but also those who use the PC only for leisure keep precious information in memory and I think above all of the photos, as well as personal documents. For these reasons, when a computer breaks down, it can be a disaster if we haven't done a preventive backup . Let's see together all the methods that we can use to make a backup of your computer, so as to avoid unpleasant situations and quickly recover important files .
Article Index
- Backup devices
- Effective backup strategy
- Conclusions
Backup devices
The important thing to prepare, therefore, is a backup of the data, that is a backup.
Many people, including me, consider backing up a job as tedious as demanding, because the data to be saved could be hundreds of Gigabytes.
But the backup is done immediately, without delay, when the computer is in perfect health; in this regard, we can take advantage of all the backup opportunities offered by modern computers . Among the many methods we choose the best and most practical ones for our type of computer work.
External hard disk
The undisputed sample of backups is the external hard disk, which can be connected to any USB 3.0 port on the computer. The disk can be detached when not in use, so as to make it immune to possible infections and damage due to some hacker (sneaked into the computer to delete all the data).
Although mechanical disks are now considered obsolete to be used as main drives on computers (replaced by SSDs), they still do their part when it comes to backups, where the best solutions remain without a shadow of a doubt. To find good hard drives for backup, we refer you to the guide to the Best Portable External Hard Drives: buying guide .
Advantages : Portable, simple, affordable prices.
Disadvantages : they can break easily, vulnerable to theft or physical destruction, slow compared to SSDs.
Network Attached Storage or NAS
NAS is a professional solution that has a higher cost even if NAS are now available at really affordable prices.
They are like small low-consumption PCs capable of managing 2 or more disks without problems, your space is made available as a shared resource to all the PCs on the network. Their capacity exceeds that of a normal external hard disk and can reach 16 TB or more.
With a NAS turned on we will not have to worry about doing the backup manually: we point the backup to a shared folder and set it automatically on Windows, so as to always be covered in case of problems. The maximum speed is limited to the type of connection with which the PC connects to the modem where the NAS is present: the cable speed is good, via Wi-Fi it depends on the type of network used (at 5 GHz it is much faster ).
To learn more about NAS, we can read our guide on how to buy a network NAS Storage: what it is used for and how much it costs .
Advantages : backup is automatic, fast and everything on the network, with adequate configuration you can also access the NAS via the Internet from anywhere.
Disadvantages : the price can be high, you need a cool and safe place to keep the case with disks inside.
Cloud Storage
Saving data on an online space, on the Internet, would be a great innovative solution if not
still had certain rather obvious limits.
Taking into consideration the same 4 parameters of judgment, we see that the capacity / price ratio is very high, often with monthly passes and limited space.
The speed, as it is based on the internet connection (other than the connection of an internal wifi network), can never be high enough .
The Internet connection is a bottleneck that in Italy makes this solution almost impractical.
There are also many weaknesses regarding security from the dangers of hackers and data theft.
Theft and physical destruction, even if possible, is extremely unlikely, even if you have to rely on a service of fame and proven honesty and professionalism in order not to risk that it will be closed and make it impossible to recover data.
This solution will probably become the most popular backup system in the future, but currently it still has too many disadvantages to be usable on 1 TB of data or more.
In another article we saw together a comparison of free cloud drives to save files online .
Advantages : several options available, access to files from anywhere with an Internet connection, automatic synchronization functionality.
Disadvantages : you need a fast and stable internet connection, the prices are very high compared to other solutions, privacy problems, vulnerable to hackers.
Physical media CD, DVD or Blu-Ray
This solution seems archaic today, but can still be considered.
The price is low and the capacity can theoretically have no limits, since dozens of discs can also be used.
The speed is not high, but it defends itself well with modern burners and Blu-ray discs. It is better to ignore CDs and DVDs, since they have a really too limited capacity; better to focus immediately on Blu-Ray, which can reach 500 GB and more capacity.
The weak points are those typical of physical media: they tend to be damaged, scratched or lost. However, the discs are small enough to be stored safely, perhaps even in a safe. To burn to optical media, we can read our guide on How to Burn CDs and DVDs for free (Windows and Mac) .
Advantages : disks are cheap, very safe, easy to store and hide, disks last a long time if stored properly.
Disadvantages : Not high speed, need to use more discs, higher costs for rewritable discs, possibility of error while writing (compromising the whole backup).
USB sticks or flash drives
USB sticks or flash drives are currently only suitable for small amounts of data (up to 256 GB), but they can hardly accommodate so much data that they can carry the entire disk of a PC. Better to use them for the most important files and to place portable programs in order to always have access to our documents and favorites even with the computer out of order. If we don't know which pen to buy, please read our Guide to the Differences between USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 pens and which one to buy .
Advantages : very portable, very easy to hide, good read and write speeds.
Disadvantages : price per gigabyte generally higher than a hard drive, vulnerable to theft or physical destruction, limited space compared to external hard drives.
Effective backup strategy
Fortunately, you can use multiple ways of keeping backup copies of your data at the same time . You can therefore create an optimal backup strategy which, in my personal opinion, is as follows (let me know yours in the comments). If you don't intend to pay for one of the professional online backup services, it is important to know that almost all of them can be used for limited amounts of data.
If you are using a desktop computer at home, the ideal is to buy a second internal hard disk in which to make the complete and synchronized backup copy .
There are many software to make a full disk backup including the best ones, they have been described in another article with the best free programs to make automatic and incremental backups .
It has also been explained how to clone a hard disk by copying it to another disk, even without an operating system installed.
Documents and photos
In the article on the best online storage services of 10 free cloud drives we saw names like Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive that ensure security, speed and availability 24 hours a day.
By subscribing to these services and installing the relevant clients on the computer, it is possible to keep the documents synchronized on one and the photos on another .
You can also back up the backup or copy this data in triplicate or quadruple copy.
For sensitive data, encrypted cloud tools can be used (see 6 ways to encrypt files uploaded to cloud storage ).
Music
Music can be put online, up to 50, 000 songs for free, on Google Play Music, so you can also listen to it when we are away from home or we have purchased a new PC, using the Google service app or online client.Video
The videos, on the other hand, can be uploaded to a private Youtube channel, so that you can review them at any time without having to share them with users. In this regard, we can read our article on how to upload long videos on Youtube without time limits .
Large files
Heavier files such as ISO images, downloaded films and compressed archives, which can be stored on an external hard disk or on the NAS, so as to free up a lot of space and still keep the files, without having to force cancel. If then we have to send one of these large files via the Internet to a friend or colleague of ours, we recommend using the services described in the guide to Send large files via the Internet without limits with direct sending in P2P .
Programs
Purchased programs, including installing Windows or Office, can be copied to CD or DVD . For convenience, we always recommend using portable programs, so that you can move them to a USB stick and use them on other computers as well, without having to move your favorites or history each time (which will actually come with us). In this regard, we invite you to read our guide to the best portable programs without installation for USB sticks (Windows) .Conclusions
In conclusion, to meet any type of technical disaster or computer breakdown, prevention is the key .
The risk of losing all your data at one time is always high, even if you have been lucky enough to never have had to deal with it.
With recent versions of Windows, then, unless you break the hard disk, you can always restore or reinstall Windows without losing data and settings .
With Windows 10 you can always proceed with a restore thanks to the new functions to reinstall or reinitialize Windows from a backup .
It is also possible to schedule the copy from one disk to another of the data automatically using simpler and less intrusive programs such as SyncToy for the synchronization of files and folders that can be done not only between different disks but also between different computers connected in network.
The difference between synchronization and backup is that in the first one both parts are affected so the files are identical in each part while in the backup you make the copy only from one side to the other and not vice versa.
