How to backup data on your home PC.

            The data on your home PC can be just as valuable, if not more so, as the data on a business system. It can be just a vulnerable to the same threats as data on a business system. Fortunately home data backup can be affordable and easy to setup.

            There are numerous different types of media that you can store your backed up data on. A standard CD-R or CD-RW will work, but they only hold about 700MB of data. This means that you will probably have numerous CDs to keep track of depending on how much data you have. There is also DVD-R that holds about 4.7GB. The DVD-R is fairly slow, it is not reusable, and you may still need several disks to hold all of your data. The external hard drive is probably the best way to go. There are a few types of interfaces for these drives (USB 2.0, Firewire a.k.a 1394, eSATA), so make sure that you get one that is compatible with your PC. Every PC on the market within the last 5 years should have a USB 2.0 port, and even if the PC is a little older it should still have a USB 1.1 port that is backwards compatible but transfers at a slower speed. As a safe assumption, an external hard drive that is double the size of your hard drive in the PC should suffice. This assures some space for your data to grow in size.

            The software used to run the backups is the most important aspect. If your backup software doesn’t run reliably then you won’t be able to rely on the data being there if something happens to your PC. Windows XP comes with a descent backup program named NTBackup. NTBackup walks you through a wizard that lets you select where the data is that you want to backup. It will ask where you want to send the backed up data, and it will let you set a schedule backup jobs to run automatically so your data is continuously backed up as often as you would like.

            Windows Vista comes with a backup utility but it seriously lacks options that make it a good program to use. If you have Windows Vista, or want an even more robust program than Windows XP’s NTBackup, there is Acronis True Image Home. The Acronis software also walks you through a wizard to setup and schedule backup jobs. In addition to typical data file backups you have the option to create an image of your entire hard drive in your PC. Acronis True Image also has better reporting features. True Image will send you an email with the completion status when the backup finishes.

            The most common locations for your data are:

In Windows XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\My documents

C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Favorites

C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Cookies

C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Desktop

C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities

C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Application Data\Address Book

In Windows Vista:

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Contacts

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Desktop

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Documents

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Downloads

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Favorites

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Music

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Pictures

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Videos

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Identities

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies

If you have more than one user created, backup these folders under each user’s folder.

If you have other questions or concerns please call us at Idea Solutions:

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