The 3-2-1 rule for backup: three copies of your data, two local (on different devices) and one off-site. For most people, this means the original data on your computer, a backup on an external hard drive, and another on a cloud backup service. With this system, you’re highly unlikely to lose all your data, even if your laptop gets stolen, your hard drive crashes, your house burns down, or the Internet as we know it dies. (If all those things happen at once you probably have bigger problems.) In this guide we’re focusing on creating an automatic incremental backup (one that backs up only the files that have changed since the last backup), because once you set it up, you don’t have to worry about it again. The system will automatically back up all your past and future data according to the 3-2-1 rule, and you’ll also be able to go back to see previous versions of your files in case you overwrite something important. Merely moving your important files to a hard drive or a flash drive does not constitute making a backup. Hard drives fail—it’s not a question of if, but when—and flash drives and SD cards are small and easy to lose.

A good backup system requires redundancy, with multiple copies of your important data so the data isn’t lost forever if disaster strikes. Cloud syncing services like or are not backups, they’re for syncing files across devices, and they’re great at that. But they aren’t cost-effective for backing up your entire computer—Google charges $10 per month for 1TB and Dropbox charges $8.25 for 1 TB, which is pricier than Backblaze’s unlimited $5 per month. And there’s usually no, so we don’t suggest using cloud syncing services for anything private, especially personal documents like tax returns. Cloud backup services encrypt the files on your end. This means the provider doesn’t have the key to decrypt them, making them as secure as possible. But if you still don’t trust a cloud backup service, your options for a 3-2-1 backup are much more limited.

Backing Up a File or Folder. To select a file or folder for backup, simply right click, select Carbonite and click Back this up. You can add multiple files at once by selecting a folder for backup. When you add a file or folder to your backup, a colored status dot will appear on its icon.

You still need to have one backup at home and another off-site. For your off-site backup, you need another drive stored at a different physical location, like at work or at a friend’s house. You can set up a remote server system for handling this, but it’s. Some people prefer to make a system image instead of a backup. This is a snapshot of your entire drive that saves all your files, programs, and preferences, as well as the operating system, drivers, and more.

Best browser for mac os x. If your drive fails, you can restore your backup to a new drive or computer exactly the way you had it, without having to redownload, reinstall, and reconfigure all your apps and settings. This is overkill for most people, because it takes a long time to make these images, includes tons of files you don’t need, and doesn’t allow you to easily restore older versions of just a few files at a time. If you’re still interested, for making a Windows system image,. The tools you need to back up your computer. We’ve put hundreds of hours of research and testing into our storage and cloud backup guides to find the best tools for the job. This is the gear numerous Wirecutter staffers rely on to back up our own data.

If you already have drives or a backup service that works for you, we’re not saying you should switch—that could be time-consuming and costly, for little benefit—but if you’re starting from scratch or looking to replace a piece of your setup, our picks are for you. Most people are best served by an external hard drive and a cloud backup service subscription, coupled with their operating system’s free, built-in tools. The easiest way to protect your data in case of robbery or disaster is to complement your local backup with an. Such services charge a monthly (or yearly) fee in exchange for storing your encrypted data on their servers. With their software, you can customize your preferences and retrieve your data whether you’ve lost everything or overwritten a single file.