Do I need premium backup like Carbonite?

I want backup that insures against all eventualities, even fire. Can that be had with free backup?

I want to be sure to preserve my e-mails and documents above all, but I also want to preserve my browser tabs and bookmarks, videos, and pictures. My e-mails are over 20,000 (yea, hard to find enough time to separate the wheat from the chaff). My documents are just a few hundred, videos and pictures only in the dozens.

My computer is nine years old, and it takes Malwarebytes thirteen hours these days to do a full scan.

I have never had backup and I'm really untutored in this area. Suggestions for principles for use in evaluation, products to consider and avoid, and links to the best tutorials would be very welcome.

I have been trying to get Comodo Backup, but after clicking on Register rather than taking me to another page, I just see a circle going round and round for days on end.

Windows XP
Home Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 3

Dell DIMENSION DIM2400
Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz
2.66 Ghz. 2.00 GB of RAM

 

Having lost data and cried like a baby over it, I vowed to never again lose data.

While it is not possible to guarantee data forever, I am currently taking steps to make it difficult not to have some backup somewhere. Here is my strategy, admittedly overdone, your mileage may vary:

• I have two Acronis paid for version images on two different hard drives. One is kept with me, one is kept at a trusted friend's place. (theft or fire protection being the reason for the second location)
• I keep two sets of DVDs of critical to me data, same distribution as above.
• When I see deals on or get free USB sticks, I load them up with data.
• I have my data, encrypted, on two different cloud/drop services. ADrive gives me 50GB free and have been around for years.

All this because IMO that there two kinds of users in regards to data protection:

1. Users who lose data and have backups.
2. Users who lose data and don't have backups.

Yes, this does take some time, but as Major Attitude asked: What is your data worth to you?

 

How full is your hard drive? A drive that's getting over-crowded slows Windows in just about everything it does.

 

Good plan. Thanks for the reference to ADrive... I had no idea there was a cloud-based storage that had that much free online storage! That's simply oustanding.

 

Thanks for the helpful answers. My impression now is that free backup should be good enough.

I ended up getting Comodo backup, and weighty programs were installed on my system. Then at one point I found that the Comodo Backup program on my computer was empty. I interacted with it, and it responded like I had never had backup with Comodo, although I know I had. To me that is not forgivable. I have ruled out Comodo as a backup option.

Re usafveteran : My hard drive has 111 GB, 43.6 GB free.

I am glad to hear from cipher that there is a free option with Adrive of up to 50 GB of backup. I have no idea how much I really need, or how far the common amount of 5GB free will go. I can't imagine, however, that wouldn't easily cover the stuff I really care about, again : my documents, e-mails, videos, pictures, browser tabs, bookmarks, and histories, my Windows updates, I suppose, and just a list of my programs. With Comodo I wasn't given any option to prioritize, and I don't know whether my important stuff was all backed up.

I have heard horror stories about backup, and experienced a stark failure myself. I would like to hedge my bets by getting two different backup programs. Is that possible?

 

I would NOT depend solely on one source of backup. Just like your computer's defense against nasties, a layered approach is best. You should have local copies on DVD or USB/External HD as well. If it is important to you...

The videos and, depending on the number of them, the pictures will consume large amounts of space. I would backup to a few different online services, you never know when one will go down. Also check http://www.mediafire.com they too offer 50GB...

 

I'm going to go with MA on this one, and the external hard drive cloned image solution.

I personally don't trust Windows, and clone an image of my boot drive on a regular basis.

 

Re cipher : I have under 350 items in My Documents. My videos and pictures are merely in the dozens. I don't think that's too heavy. It's the e-mail that's huge.

I take it then you see no problem with getting multiple backup programs. Thanks for telling me about another 50 GB program.

When I get one, can I control what goes first so I make sure the essential things are covered?

 

Strategy is also important from the "what to back up" viewpoint once you have settled on a program or programs.

It seems easy, but it can be fairly complicated. If you have 20,000 e-mails, that must be several GB, but you only need to back them up once (once in multiple locations if that is your choice). The same is true of images, audio, and video. In your case, I don't know, but would a one way synch make sense for your e-mails, images, audio, and video? I only keep 8 days worth of mail on the PC myself (and I have a receipts folder and a membership folder with passwords and usernames that I don't "archive"...these are backed up with Documents and Settings but it's not a large backup for me).

I would say the simpler the better is the best rule to live by. Whether you need just one or two (or more) copies of your data, at least try to make the backup process something that you can easily automate, so that it will run on a schedule. It's a stressful trying to keep up with backups run manually.

Currently, I just keep a single back up of my files on a separate hard drive. I have two hard drives besides the main drive, but I keep the majority of my audio, video, and images on the larger one (second one), which is also used for the backups that I run off the main drive. I back up the music, video, and images files kept on drive two on the third drive. The main backup I have on the second drive is Documents and Settings. I think D&S is important to get in its entirety. I also back up the registry with ERUNT, and it's on the second drive too.

With this discussion, you guys have me inching much closer to a drive tower with 4 externals. Also, you have me considering options for keeping data at a remote location. I just don't like cloud storage options. File sharing yes, storage no, although Cipher's idea to encrypt would seem to guarantee the security of his data.

 

Agree. And your other points are well made, i.e. some data is static and the simpler the solution the better.

I operate under the theory that multiple backups of different types are necessary because every backup can fail. Statistically speaking, its a matter of when, not if.