Backing up home PC

**Kyajae** · 11 May 2007, 08:33

Originally posted by Burdock

It's got to the stage where there is a lot of important stuff on my PC, and in the unlikley event of a hard disk malfunction, I would be in the brown stuff.

I've never backed up my PC before, and wouldn't know where to start. Any solutions gratefully received

External USB hard drives come in several capacitys from 60Gb to 400Gb and are very reasonably priced (see www.ebuyer.com)

I use Maxtor external drives which come with Dantz Retrospect backup software - you can configure this software to backup a whole drive, volume or just speciic folders on your PC and it will restore your data if a drive fails.. I used 2 drives at home to backup 2 PCs and a server once a week - it's perfect

**timh** · 11 May 2007, 08:42

Well, they come in much bigger capacities than that too..!
You can get a 500GB external for 80 quid or less now, if you shop around.

There are some good external SATA RAID enclosures as well, but you don't seem like you're excessively paranoid about your data.

**XTC** · 11 May 2007, 08:50

I always partition my drive so there is a D drive specifically for data. C drive purely contains OS and Apps. That way whenever u want to do a rebuild or if it crashes it's relatively straightforward. I also use an external firewire drive for backups. And I image the PC using ghost so doing a rebuild takes 20mins.

**Burdock** · 11 May 2007, 09:19

Nice one chaps!

Will look for an external HD....

cheers for all the feedback!

[edit] anyone care to recommend one from this list:
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/cat/Hard-Dr...Desktop-Drives

looking at minimum of 400GB. Or are they all much of a muchness?!

**timh** · 11 May 2007, 09:34

You probably want one with an on/off switch, but other than that they're pretty similar. It's mostly aesthetics.

Some people avoid Maxtor drives like the plague so you might want to take that into account. (Lacie used to use Maxtor drives, I don't know if they still do.)

**Zorba** · 11 May 2007, 10:03

Worth checking the warranty length too - some drives have as much as 5 years which is really nice if they cark it in the 4th as one of mine did last week. Doesn't save your data though. I personally use Acronis for my backups and it's pretty good, although there are many other options. Just make sure you try a restore or a check of a backup every now and then!

**Burdock** · 11 May 2007, 10:27

Originally posted by Zorba

I personally use Acronis for my backups and it's pretty good, although there are many other options.

Crikey, that Acronis is only £25! I'll have a slice of that too!
nice one....

**cojak** · 11 May 2007, 10:56

Yep, very pleased with Acronis...

**Zorba** · 11 May 2007, 11:16

Originally posted by Burdock

Crikey, that Acronis is only £25! I'll have a slice of that too!
nice one....

No worries - I think it got a very good review on PC Pro a while ago... hang on...

<googling>
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/10227...-image-10.html
</googling>

There you go. Slightly off topic but I tend to find the PC Pro A-list is usually a handy place for a quick answer to those 'what laptop/printer/monitor/left-handed-flange-shifter should I buy?' questions you tend to get once 'word gets around'.

Backing up home PC