Storing System Restore Files Of Several Laptops And Pc In A Same External Drive?

Win 10 pushes making restore points in external drive, which might not be a bad idea anyway. My question is, can I safely create Windows restore points for three different laptops in the same external drive, e.g. each laptop has its own folder? I would also like to back up my fourth laptop with Win XP, including some programs and data. (There are certain legacy programs I still like to run - I have no intention of accessing the net, except perhaps once if I can still find the latest - last - drivers and Win updates for it.) And I guess it might be a good idea of backing up also my PC that runs Win 7, the hardware drivers and Windows.

I would like your opinion: which hdd model/brands are the most reliable? Speed is not important, only reliability, but I'm ideally looking for something that already has a case.

Apart from that laptop, I am planning to have a separate external hard drive for data, for two laptops and one that I actually will be carrying with me - that drive doesn't have to be big as the idea is to synchronise the documents with other laptops/pc. I think 500GB drive on the move is more than enough for all of the system restores of laptops and PC and I think a smallish drive, perhaps up to 4 TB would be more than enough for my data backup.

 

First, I think it is great you are concerned about backing up your data. I wish everyone was.

Ummm, no it doesn't. The default is and always has been the boot drive. In fact, just running it now, there is no way to change where to put restore points.

Are you sure you mean "restore points" and not "backup images"?

IMO, no external drive that relies on the USB port is reliable enough to serve as a backup device. Certainly not as the only backup device. I much prefer networked drives, or use one computer to backup the other. In any case, not sure one is better than the other. I would pick either Seagate or WD.

Don't forget "physical security". If a bad guy breaks into your house, chances are he will steal your external drive along with your computers.