The computer has long been our faithful companion and assistant in all areas of human activity. It is all the more offensive to discover that all data from the hard drive was destroyed due to the tricks of a malicious program, a software or hardware failure, or just a power surge, which occurs in our area even in large cities.
Unfortunately, a person rarely thinks about the future, and therefore almost all such cases end sadly. Only after that comes the understanding that only backup can prevent the loss of important documents or family archives with photos and videos.
We think that it is not necessary to talk about the decoding of this term, since it is already obvious. However, let's say a few words. So, backup is the process of saving the most important data (or the entire contents of the hard drive) to another physical medium. The latter is very important: if you think that whencopying a file from drive C to drive D, which is located on the same physical volume, you are protecting your data, then you have to disappoint.
But if you copied the information you need to an external hard drive, which you then disconnected and put in a drawer, then this is really a backup, which can really prevent loss of nerves, time and money. The same can be said for using a flash drive, an optical drive, or even a RAID array.
To make this event really effective and help in the event of a hard drive crash or malware, we recommend that you follow some important principles, which will be described below.
Frequency, regularity of execution
When planning your copying schedule, imagine taking life-saving pills, and skipping a dose can end badly. So in the case of a backup - of course, a year-old archive can be of historical value, but this will not make it easier for you if you lose an important course project that you have been working on for a couple of months. What can we say about large companies, in which the loss of results of a couple of working days can lead to severe financial and reputational losses.
How to determine a reasonable frequency of this important operation? It's simple - determine for yourself how often you change your important data. For example, an old archive of grandfather's front-line photographs can be digitized and saved once, periodically monitoring the safety of the physical medium, but withregularly updated database of wedding shots (if you are a photographer, for example), such static will never go away.
Most often, experienced users prefer to save the results of their work once or twice a week. Can be used as a special program for data backup (NortonGhost, Acronis) or a regular copy/paste command.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket
In principle, we already talked about this at the very beginning of the article, but we will reveal this issue in more detail. We strongly recommend that you save information only to an external hard drive so that it is stored separately from the main data array. This is especially important if the main hard drive of your computer is no longer young and can go to the "country of eternal hunting" at any moment. In this case, only the correct backup setup with an adequate distribution of the saved data can help.
Here it is worth making a small digression. In no case do not confuse a normal hard drive with a flash drive. The latter type of drive is just a modern version of a floppy disk. In ancient times, when this type of floppy disk was still in use, no normal user in their right mind would store an important report or anything like that there. Do you think a flash drive is more reliable? Alas, this is not the case.
Why do flash drives fail?
Professionals who work in the computer repair industry can cite hundreds of cases where a brand new flash drive burned out when inserted into a faulty USB port. And becomeanyone can do it, since no one is immune from problems with the power supply, broken tracks on the motherboard and other troubles. In addition, flash drives (especially large ones) tend to degrade. Their cells are gradually depleted, they no longer hold a charge, as a result of which the carrier deteriorates.
Alas, it is almost impossible to predict this event. Therefore, never and in no case store any important data on such a medium. Bring films from a friend - please, but no normal person will keep there (in a single copy - generally a "clinic") a diploma painstakingly created. In addition, flash drives are often lost due to their size, which is also worth considering.
Ideally, every important copy should be duplicated at least twice. Suppose the main backup will be stored on an external hard drive, the second copy in the "cloud", and the third one can be written to the same flash drive, even to a DVD disc, if your computer still has a drive for it.
Important! If you are a passionate movie lover, photographer or designer working with large media files, then professional backup systems based on home NAS servers are the best solution for you. As a rule, they implement the principle of RAID-1, constantly making backups. The volume of such storage is limited only by your financial capabilities.
Check and recheck!!
As soon as you make a copy, immediately (best of all - on a differentcomputer) check its performance! And don't be content with just the fact that the files in the archive are just visible: that doesn't mean anything. Unpack a few of them to choose from, run, open … In a word, make sure that they are completely safe. We strongly recommend that you carry out such checks at least once a month: this way you will reliably insure yourself against unpleasant surprises.
Not every file is valuable
Be sure to distinguish the stored data by the criterion of "importance". To determine this, you can use both the necessary frequency of saving (the more often, the more important), and your personal value. This is done very conveniently, because backups are usually performed using special programs. They store information in one image, so it's easy for you to create multiple categories.
Why all these difficulties? It's simple - different information requires different handling. For example, you will probably store the results of scientific work much more carefully than a collection of films (of course, not counting some rare newsreel). By dividing this data by the frequency of backup, you can save both the resource of the hard disk used for backup and reduce the time required for this.
Divide and Conquer
Some types of data are strongly not recommended to be "stuffed" into the same archive. For example, the average user's computer has a lot of movies, music, unimportant text documents, and photos. Do not forget about bookmarks andplug-ins in the browser, mail correspondence, etc.
However, about browsers… There is practically no point in worrying about them today. The fact is that all normal programs of this class have the ability to synchronize with the servers of the manufacturer. At the same time, the history, the list of installed extensions, and so on are saved. You only need to create an account by entering your email address and choosing a strong password.
So, don't confuse this information with "system backup". Simply put, a complete copy of the operating system must be made separately. This is due to the fact that for most users, a clean “cast” of the OS, made immediately after installing the drivers, codecs and the required software package, is ideal. There is no need to do this operation daily. But the same photos and documents, if you work with them every day, it is best to archive daily.
It's generally stupid to do a full disk backup at home, unless we are talking about a local partition with the system.
Media
We have already discussed this issue a little, but we need to talk about it in a little more detail. So…
External hard drive
There are really external ones, initially hidden in a casing and connected via USB. There are many models of adapters on the market into which a standard hard drive is inserted, and it is connected to the computer via the same ubiquitous USB. In this case, for relatively little money, you can getan impressive amount that will fit almost any backup.
So, if an external drive costs more than four thousand rubles for a model of 750 GB or one terabyte, then for two or three thousand you can easily find a hard drive with a capacity of two terabytes. But there is also a minus. An external USB drive is much more reliable in terms of protection against shock and mechanical damage. However, if you use it exclusively at home, then there is no real reason to overpay for extra functionality.
Whatever it was, but any hard drive has a lot of advantages:
- Relatively reliable and durable.
- Relatively inexpensive, so regular backups and restores won't put a heavy burden on your budget.
- If funds allow, you can constantly increase the amount of backup storage by simply buying more capacious models.
However, there are also enough negative sides. Here are their main disadvantages:
- Firstly, they need to be connected every time, which is not always convenient with a large amount of diverse data, when each category needs a separate carrier.
- If it's an ordinary hard drive, connecting it is doubly inconvenient, since you have to disassemble the case of the system unit for this. Laptops are even worse.
Flash drives
Well, everything has already been said about this carrier, but now we just summarize the data presented then. Let's start with the positive traits:
- Comfortableconnect.
- Very mobile: you can put it in your pocket, even a dozen flash drives will not take up much space.
- In recent years, they have been extremely reliable.
They also have important unpleasant properties, such as: they are extremely unstable and have a physically limited recording cycle that can end at any moment (subject to intensive use). It is definitely not worth storing important data on them.
Clouds
This topic has been heard by all users in the last two or three years, even those who do not have a special experience. This refers to virtual "hard drives" located on the servers of many companies. Known for Google Drive, Yandex disk, Mail.ru disk, Dropbox, MEGA and others. They are very convenient in that they offer (for a fee, of course) an almost unlimited amount of disk space. In addition, you do not have to worry about the technical component: this is the work of data service engineers.
Let's look at the benefits that are especially appealing to users around the world:
- You can access your backups from anywhere with an internet connection.
- Your data is protected from various emergencies, as these companies use a multi-level data separation system, backups of which can generally be stored on different continents.
- There is no need to connect any additional equipment, since copying is done on the fly, without your participation.
As usual, there issome negatives. Here is a list of them:
- Firstly, it is highly desirable to encrypt really confidential data, since if your password is stolen, any attacker can gain access to it.
- This method is not suitable for owners of expensive and limited Internet access, as a large amount of traffic is spent.
- No more than 15-20 GB of disk space is usually given for free (Dropbox generally provides only two gigabytes). Rates are usually in dollars, so backing up files can become too expensive at the current rate.
Incremental or differential?
Very often novice users cannot understand what incremental, full and differential backups are. There is nothing difficult in this. For example, a full copy means a copy of the entire hard disk (or directory), and a backup operation is performed every time you run the backup program. So, for example, a full backup of Windows is done.
Incremental backup is used in cloud service clients. Whenever a file is changed, the old copy is deleted and replaced with a newer version. Thus, you always have up-to-date information at your fingertips. Differential copying, on the other hand, involves writing several recent versions of a file at once, which are placed in a separate folder.
In general, we have de alt with the main points. By the way, how do you make a backup? A small and free program is perfect for this purpose (there is also amore functional paid version with advanced features), which we will discuss below.
Exiland Backup
This utility allows you to easily and quickly set up automatic backups that will be performed without your participation. This data backup program can not only archive the information you need, but also synchronize copies between several of your computers (in the paid version).
When you first start the program will ask you when, how and what to copy. It works in the background, so you don't have to remember to set it up later. We remind you once again that it is most reasonable to schedule automatic backups at night, when work with all the files has already been completed, in order to get the most recent and up-to-date copy of the data at the output.
How to use it? Before making a backup, carefully look at the main working window of the utility: in its upper left corner there is a "Create" button. Click it. A window for creating a new task will appear. In general, everything is as simple as possible there: specify the disk, folder or specific file, select the time and type of copying; it is possible to set the option to copy only a certain type of files by mask (exe, for example). After that, press the "OK" button.
In the lower field for displaying data, information about the task you created appears. If you right-click on it and select the "Options" item in the drop-down context menu, you can easily change the execution conditions, set new file types, change the startup time, andetc.
Here's how to make a backup using this utility. If there is such a desire, you can purchase a fully functional version, which costs about three thousand rubles. Its functionality includes data synchronization between computers, an unlimited number of tasks and other goodies.
We hope you learned how to back up. Take care of yourself and your valuable data!
