Here is how I back up my data, how do you do it?

It's convenient to keep an external drive to automatically back up. But, I now do it manually and connect the drive only then. Maybe I'm paranoid, but if you become infected with a bad virus, it might infect all connected devices also.

This is definitely the safest option: occasional manual backups.

Making unattended automatic backups is utter folly, because you are completely vulnerable to any virus that infects your system, which will simply be automatically propogated through all your backups.

Also, I would never leave a backup device connected all the time. Any device has a finite lifetime, so will last much longer if only in use for a couple of hours once a week.

Norton Ghost is a great product, but for a much quicker backup you can use the program Robocopy.exe built into Windows 7, which can do an update of altered files only, which can be much quicker than making a complete image of your entire hard disk. Here is a straightforward batch file -

SET source=C:\Users
SET destination=D:\

ROBOCOPY "%source%" "%destination%" /E /XO /FFT /DST /COPY:DAT /A-:A /DCOPY:T /XJ /SL /R /PURGE /V

I`ve used Nero and many other backups for my files. Now that I have a Windows 7 Pro., what program or system should I use.......

one problem with "on all the time Back Up" is if you get hit with a crypt-lock virus you have just lost the back-up -- it will be encrypted 2 - I keep my back up powered off so that will not happen

Wow!
That flash drive sounds just fine, if you have just a few documents and a few pictures to back up, I mean.
What about someone like me. I have 128GB of Music, 166GB of Pictures and only 2.5GB of Documents and I'm not even including the video folder.
My programs folder reads 105GB too.
Just to be quick, I have a 1TB HD that reads 850GB of that used and yes, I have been backing it all up to external HDs.
I use Acronis True Image Software to backup the whole HD, and also use Western Digital own files backup software, you know, the one that comes with their external hard drives, to backup files only.
This sounds all just fine if you have the time and patience to wait for those backups to finish.
It takes a loooonnng time to backup a 1TB hard drive and you have to be always doing it.
The files backup is not so bad, but to be sure that it will be backed up, I always use another external HD just to backup any new file that I am adding to my computer/s; being it a document, a new picture, etc.
I am very much afraid of not being able to return the computer to a earlier stage, because I have some very expensive software installed, hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth, and as everyone knows, some companies do not allow you to reinstall without paying for another license.
Adobe allows you to deactivate Photoshop and then reactivate in another computer, but others don't do that. Some give you a few re-activation opportunities and when you have used them all, that is it, you have to buy more activation authorizations.
So, back it up, back it up, back it up.
Good backups to everyone and all the best to all,
Domingos

If you have thousands of dollars of software on your hard disk, you need to make a byte-by-byte clone or image of your hard disk, on another 1TB hard disk.

That way, you have a backup disk which you can replace your existing disk with if anything goes wrong with your original. A byte-by-byte clone is a fully working duplicate of the original. Because it is an exact duplicate, all of your expensive software will work without needing to be reinstalled.

Once you have made the clone as your backup, you may only need to make a new clone once every two or three months, because you only need to re-do the lengthy cloning process after you install new software.

In the meantime, you can back up new document files you create by simply copying them to a USB thumb drive - for example. You need only spend a few minutes a day on this.

I do commend you on your diligence, however, I have found most people I know are going to do that for a week or 2 then stop doing it because, let's face it, it's a hassle, especially for non-techies. I believe anything worth backing up is worth backing up to both an external hard drive and to the cloud. Even if you keep your external drive safe from viruses, it is not safe from fire, flood, or theft (unless you lock it in a fireproof safe that is bolted down. Cloud backup is cheap and is completely safe from viruses like Cryptolocker/wall etc. Plus if you need a file while away from your computer, with most of the cloud backup services you can just login to your account and get it from anywhere with internet access. I am not criticizing as your plan is great and as long as you are willing to do what you do, it is fine. But I feel like most people should setup something that they can set and forget because they just won't keep it up otherwise.

The major, major problem with cloud backup is that copying a file to a remote on-line server is so terribly slow.

It is about fifty times faster to copy a file from a hard disk to a backup hard disk, than to copy the same file to an on-line server.

Broadband internet is fast at downloading files from the internet to your local disk, but often deathly slow when uploading files, because ISP's typically give no priority to uploading, applying massive bandwidth throttling to preserve their very fast download times from being reduced by users who have the impertinence to want to choke the available bandwidth with file uploads.

With mine, the initial backup took a little over a month. But, once that was done, most of the individual file backups are finished within minutes of the file being written to disk.

The exception is, of course, video. An hour of video takes five or six hours to upload to the cloud. I actually pause the cloud backup while I upload to YouTube, and it turns itself back on 24 hours later. So, the videos only exist on my system and the NAS for the first coupla days.

My sports videos are just a hobby, so I don't care that they're not backed up offsite immediately. And, I only have one or two per week.

Albeit, someone who is uploading videos as their livelihood would probably be paying for much higher bandwidth, anyway.

And, finally, in cases of a full restore, most of these cloud operators will provide a hard drive with your entire backup.

Drake Christensen

I have 40 MBPS download but only 5 +/- MBPS upload. Using that ratio and a hypothetical 30 day upload that would five me almost four days to download everything if I had a catastrophic failure of some kind. For me that is totally unacceptable. Additionally, with that much data going up or down the pipe, that does that do to other day-to-day internet and/or home entertainment use while you are doing that process.

My main backups are image backups and I do save some files to SpiderOak just to also have them elsewhere. But I can be back fully operational with all my programs and date in well under two hours from both image backups.

As I indicated in my post, I also have a NAS. So, in most situations, I have all my data on-site. But, in the case of fire, theft, Cryptlocker, or some other catastrophic loss, I have a separate off-site copy of everything, usually within minutes of up-to-date. Defense in depth. With the added bonus of requiring no manual steps on my part to make it happen, like plugging in an external drive.

Yes, the month-long backup is a long time. But, it's a one-time deal. (Also, I throttled my upload, because I have a roommate, and didn't want to be a jerk and swamp his bandwidth.) After that initial copy, it's (generally) an intermittent trickle.

I would never trust a cloud backup as my only backup. (I have read of a small number of people needing their backup and finding out that it wasn't there.) But, I think it's a reasonable extra layer to a robust backup system.

Drake Christensen

Why not just use SugarSync and have everything backed up automatically to the cloud when a file is created or modified. Their basic plan is $75 a year, granted a few dollars more, and the limit for that is 250GB, with more available. With cloud backup and syncing to any other computer, I'd say it would be worth checking out.

I fully understand the attraction of what you do. However, you can back up your system too by making a clone. You will need to buy, instal, and partition a new additional drive. Huge sizes are available cheap. You could extend your system capacity very cheaply at the same time. Here's the software you need:-
http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/downloads/discwizard/
Mine came with the new SEAGATE disk I had purchased and one disk in your PC needs to match with this manufacturer. {I think Maxtor & Seagate are now one & the same}.

I do all my data back-ups with a free Microsoft programe called Synctoy. Here is is:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=15155
I chose the "CONTRIBUTE" option which overwites when anything is changed. You can choose "Echo" or "Synchronize" - all explained in simple language. It can be automatically scheduled or started manually with a few clicks.

Way to go!

Hi mtbarebee

I'll assume you know how to view the file/backups stored on your external drive. Just in case you don't...From the Win8 desktop select and double click "This PC" or access the Win8 Charms Bar and type "This PC" in the search field and hit "Enter". With either action you see your external USB drive....double click the drive to view the files.

If available space on the external drive is not a concern then there is no need to remove the Win8 Clone/Backup files.

Acronis 14 will not overwrite the Win8 files as every backup software assigns its own digital signature to the backups it creates. In the event a recovery needs to be done the Acronis 14 will only access the backups that show its digital signature and the same applies to those created by Win8.

If you prefer....To remove files right click the file and select "delete" or "cut". To start with a clean drive - right click the drive and select "format" which will erase all data. Be sure to select NTFS as the format structure. FAT32 should only be selected in scenarios where a non-windows OS on another computer (i.e. OSX, Linux, UNIX) is sharing the same backup drive.

Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM)

It wasn't so long ago that I remember that people were praising RAID for backup. Perhaps this whole deal with ransom ware has actually brought about a bit of realization between the difference of hardware failure and software corruption. Now I would suggest that the biggest issue now is the difference between incremental and full backups on a schedule. Besides the timing and the problem of bit rot, as we move from tapes and physical media, this seems like the logical next step. As I see it though we are moving to a enterprise backup schedule to the desktop, which is a good thing in the long run.

Lee, I am surprised by your comment regarding cloud backup. Imo it's proven itself and it does not require any interaction on your part other than to start the service. I personally use Google drive and aside from backing all my data , I can easily share individual folders with ease. Imo, there is less risk in Google going away than if someone were to steal my raid nas drives or if my house burned down.

Hi jorge8850

The post you are replying to was not Lee's comment.

It's great that you at least have a backup scheme in place. However, using a cloud service (Google Drive) as your one and only repository for your data may be a bit risky. Granted a house fire destroying a USB or NAS storage device is catastropic - but a data breach on a server could have the same consequences in terms of privacy (think Jennifer Lawrence) or a total corruption of your data. Gone is Gone in any case.

Conventional wisdom suggests using a combination when possible and not rely too heavily on either for full data protection. Today we have choices unlike 6 or 7 years ago. I have iCloud, TimeMachine (NAS) and a Windows NAS in place. Although nothing is fool proof I keep my network locked downed with lots of encryption and there's nothing in iCloud that could ruin (financial) or embarrass me. Hmmm...judging from my last statement....I guess my most important data (i.e. HD/SSD clones, critical files and personal information) are stored on my NAS devices.

As far as cloud storage being the way of the future for the vast majority...I'm not yet convinced. People still need to be educated on how backups work and the choices available to them. There are some who actually think that information is stored in a "Cloud". Then there's still the security issue with hackers targeting high profile servers on a rising scale - think Sony.

Here's an excert from an article I read. Although it refers to corporate use of the cloud...IMO it can be applied to the average consumer as well. The 15% referenced may be larger today but I doubt by very much.

Copied from an article By Jeffrey Schwartz 03/04/2013 - Redmond Magazine

Many Moving Cautiously-
Despite such growth, most companies are still reluctant to back up large amounts of their data to the public cloud. For example, Acronis International GmbH, a supplier of backup and recovery software for small, medium and large enterprises, started offering its customers the option to back up their data to an IaaS it built out two years ago with more than 12 datacenters worldwide.
So far, only 15 percent of its capacity is being used for backup and recovery, according to Steve Erdman, Acronis senior VP and general manager for global business development. "It's still a low percentage of capacity," Erdman says. "We work with our customers to get them over the natural hesitation, but it's not an exploding market yet."

Didn't mean to make this reply so lengthy...my apologies. However, I believe it's safe to say that backups are important and it's great to have choices. We just have to choose wisely.

Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM)

Call me paranoid, but I do not trust the cloud. I am concerned about hacking within the cloud, attacks against infrastructure, etc. While no plan if foolproof, I want my primary backups onsite where I have physical control of them and not be depending on the existence of the cloud to be able to retrieve my files.

For others reading this and use the cloud as your primary form of backup I ask you to ponder how long it takes you to restore your complete system in the case of a catastrophic failure of your HDD or SSD? With my system I can be totally restored and fully operational within an hour of replacing a failed drive in my computer. The cloud cannot do that with any degree of timeliness.

Hi ajtrek,

I can't argue with any of your points, they are all valid. But, I still stand by my opinion on why cloud backup is best, for 3 reasons:
1. No matter which backup process you adhere to, it is a process and requires your attention. Many folks on this forum admit that it takes discipline and I believe the common PC user tends to go lax.
2. A physical drive media in your home or elsewhere can be stolen, or destroyed, leaving you with no data.
3. Your data sources change over time, requiring you to update your backup process.

With that, I suggest we assign risk to to whatever backup solution is used, because they are all valid solutions.

I believe that google drive is less risky to me than having to deal with a backup process using an external hard drive. Keep in mind that my google drive data exists in all my devices, and on the cloud. Cloud goes away, i still have my data in at least two of my laptops and even my music on my smartphone.

In summary, if you are highly disciplined, and your backup drives are in a well protected place, then you probably have minimal risk backing up to your local hard drive.
If you can't afford to look after your backup processes and don't have a well protected place for your backup media, then I recommend a cloud solution. Once set up, it takes no effort for your data to just be backed up! Does require an internet connection, but, who doesn't have one these days.
On the point of security, google has one of the best "two step" sign on processes available. Aside from giving up your password willingly, I doubt that my password can be breached. I know anything is possible here, but again, that is the risk I am willing to take, given the ease of use on google drive. I do pay $1.99 a month for 100GB of storage. Totally worth it to me.
I believe other cloud storage would suffice as well as google drive, but I have no experience with them.

geo

We were not allowed to use Google services because we were a criminal justice agency dealing with criminal justice data. Google was not compliant with the federal data CJIS standards for security and privacy. Not so much because Google admits that they scan or read each and every piece of data that goes their way. Because they refuse to have background checks on their employees. You might want to read up on the City of Los Angeles and their issues with Google (with respect to L.A.P.D.).