DO’s And DONTs Of Backing Up Your PC

You must have read many different kinds of guides and tips in the internet and majority do tell you to create a backup of your files and settings.

Also you hear from your friends and colleagues that you need to have a backup of all your files in your computer and that it’s important. But when you come to actually backing up you have so much data it’s impossible to back up all of them.

Backup PC

So in this article we will take a look at the files and settings that you really need to backup.

Functions Of Different Kinds Of Backup:

1.  Local Backups:

As the name implies you create a backup and keep it close to you in an external hard drive or another PC so that you can restore immediately if something were to go wrong. There are various tools with which you can create a local backup but what is important is the material that you are going to backup.

2.  Online Backup:

There are a number of online backup sites that will allow you to backup your files at a fee. Some of those sites are Mozy, Carbonite, Spideroak etc. and you also get syncing services such as Dropbox and sugarsync that you can use as a type of backup.

But online backups are slow because you need to upload the file and restoring the files takes time because it involves downloading the files again. But online backups are excellent backups because you can access your files from anywhere.

3.  System Image Backups:

This is a very efficient type of backup because you can instantly restore your system with a single click from a single file. The disadvantage is that it usually requires a lot of drive space to store the backup image file.

Files That You Should Backup

Files that you would usually backup are your images, documents, music and other misc. files. So let’s take a look at each of these categories:

  • Documents: make a complete backup and don’t think twice about doing it and just do it.
  • Music: you must have spent loads of money for setting up a music collection so it is a good idea to save all the MP3.
  • Pictures and Videos: pictures are really important as they are a source of your memory so it’s very important that you should have a backup. In this case online backup would be a really good idea with a local backup.
  • Application Settings: settings of each and every application that you have installed is stored in AppData folders and it is a good idea to backup them up rather than tweaking the settings again. To backup just head to C:UsersUsernameAppData and into Local, Roaming and LocalLow folders that contains the settings for your applications.
  • Bookmarks: majority of backup utilities don’t have the option to back up your bookmarks. You can use some of the syncing services to back up your bookmarks or you can just use the local backup by saving the application settings folder and restore it when you need it.

Files That You Should Not Backup

  • Windows: backing up the windows directory is useless because you will reinstall the windows anyways so it’s pointless.
  • Program files: you will reinstall all your programs so making a backup of your program files folder is waste of space and time.

It is worth noting here that if you use system image backup then all your installed programs and settings will be backed up and when you restore the image you won’t have to reinstall each and every thing again.

When You Should Backup?

This is a question which is usually asked by majority of the users. The answer is you should do it as regularly as possible. If you are using any type of online backup solution then they have that syncing option which keeps your backup updated.

Hopefully now you have gained an insight on what to and what not to backup and how often you should backup. Do let us know if you come across any more solution for backup.

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