Best Relatively Cheap Way to Back Up Data?

hitman · 29 Oct 2013 at 04:39

Need to back up data from laptop and desktop.
At the moment I use a combination of pen drives and an old external hard drive.
Whats the best most cost efficient method to do so?
Was looking into NAS drives as they offer the option of home streaming of video and music but for the convenience I think I would be looking at about £500 including internal hard drives for something like this:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-048-SY&groupid=1657&catid=2400
The best option seems to be an external hard drive which I manually back up to every so often eg :
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-154-SA
What about software to help me backing up?
Came across Rebit 6 the other day which backs up all of your data - anything else I should be looking at?
Many thanks for any advice.

Will Gill · 29 Oct 2013 at 08:49

macrium reflect is a fairly decent free product

cheapest media to use would definitely be an external NAS box - you don't mention capacity but 1-2tb drives are dirt cheap now

Amp34 · 29 Oct 2013 at 12:28

Windows has it's own built in backup system*, which can back up the OS and specific folders automatically based on what you want it to do.

*W8 made it easier but it's simple enough with windows 7 as well. I think even vista had this option as well. It's just not well published.

hitman · 29 Oct 2013 at 17:32

Amp34 said:
Windows has it's own built in backup system*, which can back up the OS and specific folders automatically based on what you want it to do.

*W8 made it easier but it's simple enough with windows 7 as well. I think even vista had this option as well. It's just not well published.

Thank you - I didn't know that!

panyan · 29 Oct 2013 at 22:08

The cheapest way I know of to stop worrying about backups is to go into a dark room and think about your happy place. As you look around this happy place, you see a sign that reads "Backup Complete 100%".

When you depart from your happy place and leave the dark room, you will never have to worry about backing up again. Additionally this method costs nothing and is a lot quicker than other posters have suggested above.

Disclaimer: This method may or may not work. Use at your own risk.