Backing up my laptop.

[stephec]

I'm looking at getting an external hard drive to back up my laptop, and have a few questions please?

Apart from making sure that it has at least the same capacity as the laptop what else should I look out for?

Do I really need to spend more than £50.00?

Will everything be backed up, folders, photos, desktop layout, downloads, etc?

If I have to, can this external back up be used to create a copy on a new laptop by restoring?

If it's of relevance it's running Windows 8.1.

Thanks in advance for any help given.

 

[fossyant]

Any drive will do. Look for a 2.5" drive like the Seagate Backup Plus. Try and get as much storage as you can, 1-2TB as a start.

Most come with automatic software. Main thing to back up is My Documents as most of your stuff ends up in there.

Or you could use a disk cloning software if worried about a complete HD failure, but you will need two drives, one for the complete clone, one for backups.

Your other option is cloud based backup - we use one-drive to backup pictures - they are the things we don't want to lose.

 

[swee'pea99]

You may find it worth checking out this recent thread: https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/whats-the-best-way-to-clone-a-2tb-disk.218073/

FWIW, I ended up going the robocopy route (Msg 11) and it worked a treat. It sounds a tad techy if you're not used to such things, but really it's as easy as pie. And - no offense - if all you want is what you say, you don't need 'as much storage as you can' - just get the storage you need, which is as you say 'at least the same capacity as the laptop'.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Do not rely solely on cloud based backup as your only means of protecting stuff you don't want to lose.

Otherwise... What they said.

 

[stephec]

What I'm trying to do is recreate the laptop, with the accounts as well, so should the need arise I can dump the back up onto a new laptop.

Or isn't it that simple?

 

[midlife]

What I'm trying to do is recreate the laptop, with the accounts as well, so should the need arise I can dump the back up onto a new laptop.

Or isn't it that simple?

Isn't that drive mirroring? I back up on a Seagate backup plus slim but only backup data not the programmes themselves.

Shaun

 

[classic33]

Acronis as recomended by @fossyant, will allow a complete copy of the drive to be made.

 

[ColinJ]

This has prompted me to backup my old laptop. I am reformatting my USB backup drive and I forgot to use the 'quick' option. It has taken 25 minutes to do 12% so it looks like it will be 3 hours before it is finished.

It is an old USB 2 drive. I think I will buy a USB 3 drive for my new laptop because this is PAINFULLY slow!

PS The backup took almost as long as the format did!