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Question

what should I use to back up my notebook

Oct 29, 2013 10:43PM PDT

my acer notebook needs to be backed up and I don't know what to use to do this. My OS is Windows 7 32 bit.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: backup notebook
Oct 29, 2013 10:51PM PDT

That depends on what you want to backup. Just the latest version of your own documents and pictures? Or the whole hard disk so you can restore all of it (including Windows and all installed programs and all settings), for example if you need a new hard disk or have such an ugly virus damage that repair is impoissible.

And it depends on how much has to be backed up. For example, there is not much wrong to storing a gigabyte of documents in your free Dropbox or Skydrive folder on the web, which is an excellent backup. But if you have a terabyte of downloaded movies, that's not feasible.

Kees

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Answer
Notebook Backup
Oct 31, 2013 4:08AM PDT

A Notebook is no different than a big-Laptop or a Desktop. It's a device carrying your precious digital "stuff." You need to ask yourself: "How big a disaster will it be to me if tomorrow the HD and MB are dead and unrecoverable?"

Until you've actually been in the situation of "losing all your stuff," many people poo-poo going through all the effort of a full backup plan with verification. Once you've had it happen, your mind will change.

IMHO.... If there's any important data on the machine (in multiple places or large quantity), then....
You need a verified, full backup on at least 1 external device that is refreshed regularly. Depending upon the rate at which content changes, you would have scheduled nightly, weekly, and monthly backups in a self-erasing rotation. External USB drives are typical media to hold the backups. Use 2 different external drives and alternate them. Store them in two different locations. So you have backup redundancy. After all, the externals are just HD's that can fail as well. They are cheap compared to losing all your "stuff."

Now the software to do it.....
Personally, I would spend the money on a product like Acronis Backup & Restore Advanced Workstation. (NOT the "Home" version) It's an Business-Level Product that is supported and updated regularly. For $75 or so you can do all that I mentioned in a automated and robust fashion. You can also pay a little more and add the Universal Restore option where if the laptop dies, you can restore the backup to an entirely different physical machine. (You might need a little computer-shop handholding help with this, but it definitely does work.)
Oh, and be sure to make the "Rescue CD's" using the backup software. That's what you'll boot from to do the restore. Note: These principles apply to any backup software and media that you might choose.

Other options are NAS Devices with RAID Configurations on your Home Network. Much more expensive, but more flexible/powerful on your home Network.

Note how I do not mention "Cloud" backup solutions. Does any of your data contain personal information? Do you want to potentially have the privacy of your data compromised? Do you want to turn it over to anonymous people running (correctly?) Web Servers? Personally, I say an emphatic NO.
But that's just personal choice. I trust my competency to do it right and keep it all "in house."

Good Luck!

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Answer
I suggest...
Oct 31, 2013 3:58PM PDT

First things first, create restore/recovery discs in order to save the OS itself. Review the manual on how to do this for your notebook, Acer clearly explains that process using erecovery s/w or you can use MS own backup under win7.

Next, you want to save any super critical data, NOT everything just what you consider that valuable it has to be saved. So copy or place folders on discs or ext. storage of your choosing. Next, if you want to do a full backup then use either some imaging s/w or cloning to some storage media. That media can be ext. HD, CD/DVD/BD discs.

Notice, in the the above I offered three areas to save various data. Once you're ready do what it takes. You may want to clean-up your PC of any extraneous doo-doo or pgms. etc. that don't get used much or what have you because when you do a full back-up in order not to waste space.

tada -----Willy Happy