gofar99 Messages: 1944 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
I use external USB drives (a 1 TB drive is now well under $100). I use two per PC and alternate them. I back up about every two weeks. You can use a longer time period....but there is more risk. Not only drive failure, but hacking. Many of the external USB drives come with a version of Acronis. A very good program. I just let it clone the drive. It takes a long time if the drive has lots of stuff on it and I will start the back up at bedtime and let it rip (can be 3-5 hours on occasion). Then if something goes wrong the USB drive can actually be either subbed for the real one or used to make a clone back to the other drive or a new drive. Alternatively you can get an inexpensive external drive dock (about $25) and use bare 2.5 and 3.5 inch SATA drives. The 3.5s are really cheap now. A 1 TB drive is usually about $60. If your main drive gets corrupted or damaged the bare drive can just plug right in the PC in its place.
We have 1 laptop and 3 PCs and there is no way I would not back them all up regularly. Not to do so is like playing Russian Roulette with 5 of the 6 cylinders loaded. It is only a matter of time before something goes wrong with the main drive.
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