How do I backup my computer?

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One concern I have is the availability of the backup program for restoring the data when you need it. Personally I like a backup set that can be read normally by an OS - one that does not require the same program to restore. This takes up more disk space for the backup set but these days space comes cheap.

Another space hog is the accumulation of data. No one takes a risk to really delete a backup set or files within. That means it grows... and grows....

I have a backup set on an 5.25" floppy. Does anyone have an 5.25" drive?

5.25" floppy? do they still make those? if you have data stored several years ago it could already be lost since floppies never lasted much when i used them

The best way to backup I think is CD and DVD backup.

My point is that don't just focus on the backup. Keep "Restore" in mind too. An old program that doesn't run anymore, an old technology for storage that is not accessible anymore and thousand other reasons can render a backup useless.

In the professional world, restoring periodically is a very valuable exercise. But how many do it? Is it too much to ask for from a home user?

It is like the airbags in my 8 year old car. The manual says they are there, the label on the car says there are there. The mechanics say they are functioning ok. But I have no idea where they are or whether they will work in that one extremely important situation. Never needing it is the best thing but they better work when needed. And I can't even test them myself.

Not so with the backups. I can test them. And I do, occasionally.

the 5.25" floppy was only a metaphor I used to say an outdated technology can render your important backups useless. And if you have important backups, you either migrate them to newer technology or have older active equipment on the standby. That includes CDs and DVDs too. May be not as fragile as the floppies (hey - am I coining a saying or what?), they have life too and that technology is evolving too.

I also send a copy of any important file to myself as an e-mail attachment. The e-mail address is accessible from just about anywhere.

I have a question about backing up the registry. What happens to it? Do you need to do a separate registry backup or is it done automatically?
If using a program like Acronis TrueImage, or Ghost does that image the registry?
If the registry does need to be backed up also,
what is a good program to do that?
I would love to see an answer to this as I
have never seen it being addressed.

Thank you!

Also don't overlook the use of USB flash drives. If you can't afford one big enough to contain all of your data, at least back up your 'can't live without' files to it and store it in a locked drawer in your workplace, for example.

Now that hard disk drives are cheap, it's worth considering setting up 2 drives as a RAID mirrored pair. You'll need a motherboard that supports this sort of drive configuration, but then you have a system with built-in redundancy against failure. Of course, this doesn't prevent the need for regular backups, but if you do get a disk failure it shouldn't mean any computer downtime - just pull out the bad drive and replace it with a good one, and the RAID array should rebuild itself.

There are a few principles to which I adhere for backup:
1. Backup to an external device (typically a disk, but for small amounts of just data a USB stick may do) that can be disconnected. This is important because malware can attack anything that is running (e.g. Raid)
2. Do it on a regular schedule - I do it once every week with Norton Ghost (Acronis would be another alternative). I backup all my data on Wednesdays and my whole system on Sundays.
3. Keep as many backups as you can fit because problems sometimes manifest themselves late in the game and you may have to go back quite a bit.

Raid for Backup? If your data becomes corrupted and unusable it does so on both drives at the same time. Then what?
Acronis True Image has worked well for me to restore data to the same hard drive in the same computer after the data has become corrupted.
I keep a backup on my secondary hard drive and a backup on an external hard drive off site.
I also back up important files to a USB flash drive (and the off site hard disk) as I have never been able to restore a full image archive made with Acronis True Image 10 or 11 to a new hard drive or a new computer. (This occurred at least three times). Acronis customer
service told me to use the Microsoft system preparation tool before migrating my data to a new system. What they didn't do was explain to me how I was to determine when my hard drive would fail so I could follow their procedure.
Perhaps Leo has more information on the difficulties of restoring data to a new hard drive or a new system using Acronis software.

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