Articles in Category: Backing Up & Backup Programs

Nothing can save your computer and data from almost any disaster like a proper and recent back up. These articles discuss backup techniques, tools and more of the things you need to do to keep your data safe.

How Should I Back Up a New Machine?

Backing up your new machine on arrival can be an important safety net. But there are degrees of safety.

How to Use Cloud Storage Safely

Cloud service providers often give us lots of storage we can use for cloud backup. How to use it safely, however, isn’t always obvious.

How Do I Test Backups?

It’s a good idea to test backups before disaster strikes. Unfortunately, a complete test can be risky. I’ll look at some alternatives.

How Do I Back Up My Computer?

Backing up your computer is critical to avoiding data loss but can seem complicated. I’ll give a suggestion for typical users.

Your Social Media Posts Can All Disappear

Every time you use someone else’s service, you put yourself and your content in their hands… for better or worse.

Backups ARE Security

Don’t overlook backing up as part of your security. When the worst happens, it’s your backup that will save you.

How Do I Transfer My System to a Replacement Drive?

Transferring data to a replacement drive needn’t be difficult. In fact, being prepared for a transfer is a side effect of backing up regularly.

How to Create an Image Backup

Once I’ve convinced you that image backups are important, your next question is most likely to be “OK, how?” Here’s a short-and-sweet answer.

Can I Rely on My Cloud Service’s Backups?

You can rely on online services for many things, but it’s unwise to rely on them too much.

What Good Is an Image Backup If All I Want Is My Data?

Image backups are great ways to back up absolutely everything on a hard disk. They’re also good for retrieving most anything, including individual files.

How to Back Up Windows 10 (& 11)

How to back up Windows using its own built-in tools in eight easy steps. Four bonus steps handle Microsoft’s plans to retire one of those tools.

How Do I Back Up an Encrypted Container?

Backing up is critical, but exactly how you back up your encrypted container data depends on how secure your backups are.

Just What Is a Backup, Anyway?

At its most basic, backups are simple: a copy of something kept somewhere else to keep it safe.

The First Thing You Should Do With a New Computer

If you can, wait to play with your new computer for a little while. I have something important I want you to do first.

Is Cloud Backup Enough?

Cloud backup vs. backing up to an external drive isn’t really a debate. Why not both?

Why Is “Back Up First” Your Recommendation for Everything?

Nothing protects you and your data like a complete, recent backup, even when it might not be obvious. That’s why I harp on it so much.

How Long Should I Keep Backups?

Having a regular backup system in place is critical. But then what? I’ll look at how long you might want to keep those backups, why, and how long I keep mine.

Back Up with Dropbox

Using Dropbox to share files across machines is pretty common. You can also use Dropbox on only one machine as backup technology.

What Do I Do If My Backup Drive is Full?

If you’re backing up regularly to an external drive, chances are you’re accumulating lots of data. I’ll look at how to organize it, and what to keep.

Should I Use RAID for Backup?

RAID is a valuable technology for improving disk speed and fault tolerance, but it is in no way a replacement for backing up.

Restoring an Image Backup from One Computer to Another

The concept seems simple: take a system image of one machine, restore it to another, and avoid lengthy setup time. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

When Backups Might Not Save You from Ransomware

Ransomware is known for encrypting your data and holding it hostage. It turns out that it can do more that backups won’t protect against.

How Should I Back Up an Encrypted Disk?

Backing up an encrypted hard drive shouldn’t be difficult, but it’s important to understand what you’ll get.

Can’t I Just Copy Everything to Back Up?

It’s tempting to just use file-copy tools to back up what you think you need. But you can easily miss something very important.

External Hard Disk for Backups – 8 Reasons They Are Your Best Option

An external drive is by far the best piece of additional equipment you can get for your computer to keep your data safe.

Just What Is a Backup?

“If it’s only in one place, it’s not backed up” really tells you all you need to know.

What’s an Incremental Backup?

Backing up is important, but terms like “full”, “incremental”, and “differential” can easily confuse. I’ll look at what these terms mean.

What Backup Type Do I Want: Full, Incremental, or Differential?

Terms relating to backing up can be confusing. Understanding them helps you make better decisions about backing up.

Testing Your Backups Is Critical

Testing your backups is an easy step to overlook, but an important one to take. Make sure your backups will be there when you need them.

What’s the Difference Between a Clone and an Image?

The difference between a clone and an image boils down to what they contain: everything, or absolutely everything.

What is an Image Backup?

Backup terminology can be confusing. I’ll define one of the terms I use frequently and explain why I think it’s so important.

If It’s All Digital, Won’t You Lose It Anyway?

A single original of anything is not backed up, and backing up is significantly easier, and of higher quality, in digital media.

Should You Use the Free Backup Software that Comes with Some External Drives?

Many external drives include free backup software that I never use. I’ll explain why, and what I do instead.

How to Back Up Photos and Never Lose Them Again: the Steps You Need to Take

Follow these steps to avoid losing precious and irreplaceable memories.

How to Back Up Before a Windows 10 Upgrade

Always back up before a Windows 10 upgrade, update, or reinstall. Create a full system image backup of up your entire machine.

What Backup Program Should I Use?

Backing up your computer’s data is critical. What backup program should you use? There are many, but pragmatically, the best is whatever you’ll actually use.

What Good Is an Image If I Can’t Restore an Old Backup to a New Computer?

Image backups are excellent protection against data loss, but restoring an old backup to new computer isn’t why you do them.

Why Don’t You Back Up Your Computer?

Backups are one way you can protect yourself from everything from hardware failure to virus infections. So why don’t you back up?

Can I Back Up to an Internal Drive?

Backing up to a second physical internal drive can be a good tool in your backup arsenal, as long as you understand its limitations.

Setting Up Macrium Reflect Free (Webinar #2)

I neglected to set up automated backups on my rebuilt laptop. I’ll walk you through downloading and installing Macrium Reflect free, and scheduling automated backups.

Creating a Backup Image Using Windows’ Built-in Backup

I don’t think much of the Windows backup utility–but any backup is better than no backup. Let’s take a look at how to use it.

How Do I Restore a Backup Image to a Smaller Drive?

Restoring to a smaller drive is often difficult. I’ll list the steps necessary to get the job done.

This Doesn’t Need to Happen

Another day, another story of data loss. The frustrating thing is that it doesn’t have to happen.

Can I Back Up Files to a Separate Partition on the Same Hard Disk?

It’s tempting to back up to a separate partition, because it’s somewhat like another disk. The problem is, it’s not. You could be risking your data.

Do I Need to Make a New Rescue Disc Every Time My Backup Software Updates?

If you don’t have rescue media, you can use another machine to make it. You certainly don’t need to make one every time you back up or update the software.

How to Protect Your Computer from Natural Disasters

Natural disasters remind us that our computers, among other things, are at risk. I’ll look at protecting your computer, and more importantly, your data.

Are Deleted Files also Deleted from Backups?

Old backups typically have all of the files that were on your machine at the time the backup was taken — and that’s what you want.

What Is Your Most Trusted Method of Backing Up?

Backing up is important. Knowing which tools, techniques, services, and even advice to trust can be a challenge.

This Is Why I Back Up

Here’s another example of why going digital enables a level of backup safety that single originals simply can’t achieve.