Windows 10: Backing up to a external hard drive

Local backups are the best, but You have to be responsible for them. Pick up a couple of USB attachable drives, Get Macrium Reflect free and make your backups. I have always said that "two backups are better than one".

 

The Event option takes you to the screen below - the option lets you run the selected schedule at logon or when the computer starts. Note Reflect Free lets you mount an image as a virtual drive from where you can copy any folder or file. This is very useful - e.g. updating my Canon printer driver lost all my personal paper settings without warning so I recovered my printer configuration file from the Reflect image. I run an automated schedule for monthly Reflect full backups and weekly differential backups. I also use File History to backup my user files every 3 hours. I'm a home user so you might want a higher backup frequency if you have business critical files.

 

It really depends how much data you generate and what type.

If it is critical word docs, photos etc, then maybe.

If it is emails, maybe not as most are in the cloud anyway assuming you do not auto delete them if they are deleted on device.

If it is downloaded stuff, probably not as you can just download again.

A pragmatic solution is to backup weekly automatically, but manually backup critical data more often.

Basically ever user needs to devise a backup strategy that fits their usage.

Me. I backup OS drive monthly, and just copy critical files to cloud (word docs etc). I rarely backup downloaded stuff eg installers.

For critical files, I recommend onedrive or google drive etc.

 

Got to thank everybody for all the excellent responses.
I've just finished reading posts of Acronis verses Macrom Reflect, and Reflect seems the way to go for me.
Also going to purchase an external WD drive as Swarfega linked to.
Steve C are you using the Reflect free version ?

I'm going to mark this as solved.
Thanks everybody !

 

You won't get much disagreement here. The free version of Macrium Reflect is fine for most users needs (Acronis is not free).

 

Yes, I use Macrium Reflect Free and I'm very happy with it. I wouldn't touch any Acronis product with a barge pole (that's a UK saying)

 

Addi8tional thoughts.:
I have downloaded the Macrum Reflect.
While comparing the WD desktop hard drives I see that they are password protected, and pre-loaded with the Acronis software.
I imagine people are reformatting the drive to get rid of the Acronis software, but that must remove the password unless the Reflect has the option to use a password ?

Last question if you don't leave your external backup hard drive connected are your powering it down ? I'm not sure these go into a type of sleep mode when not in use.