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This otherwise excellent piece omits arguably the most important "To do" -- exercise a RESTORE at least once. Backing up is just half of the solution -- the other half is restoring from backup. In my five decades of industry experience, I can assure you that the most rigorous backup strategies in the world are a colossal waste of time if RESTORE doesn't work. This can be challenging in itself, because it is often difficult to find a safe place to perform the restore. If it's at all possible, the gold standard is to restore to a completely different machine. The rub is that image backup, in particular, typically wants to replace whatever executables, registry settings, and so on are on the target machine. This can create all sorts of issues when restoring to a well-functioning system. Restoring to a different machine is often problematic unless the new machine is exactly the same as the machine that was imaged. One common scenario when a backup is needed is after a failed system update. The rub is that the target system is now in an unknown state, and the target system may not be able to even access never mind run the restore utility. You'll end up needing bootable media and -- especially in the Windows worlds -- this can quickly get VERY complicated. It is often easy to do even more harm to an already broken system by improperly booting from a "restore" media. This gets particularly dicey when the restore media wants to "adjust" partitions, with various flavors of "secure" settings in the BIOS, with encrypted media, and so on. My own imperfect approach is to run my Windows 10 Pro system on a "guest VM" running on the underlying iron. I run Rocky Linux on a robust and recent pedestal machine and I use VirtualBox (for Linux) to host my Windows 10 Pro guest VM. The advantage of this is that I can shutdown the guest VM and use Linux tools (I use rsync) to make a complete copy of the entire guest VM from a command shell in Linux. I store these copies on a different Linux file server. I'll resist the temptation to open the Pandora's Box of Windows vs Linux networking. I can't tell you how many times various of my clients and employers have spent days or weeks and enormous amounts of money successfully restoring from those rigorously maintained backups. A roomful of backups doesn't help if the media has failed (external drives do fail!), if the restore software is unable to get needed access to the target machine, if passwords and keys have changed, etc., etc., etc. The bottom line is that backing up is just half of the solution -- backing up is useless unless the corresponding restore is known to work and is usable by you.

Great content! For MSPs like us, the right tech stack is vital. We've found our groove with solid backup tools and a BDR strategy, a robust RMM, top-notch cybersecurity, and Thirdlane Multi Tenant PBX for our clients' VoIP needs. This is our recipe for success. Thanks for video!

I use Macrium Reflect to make backups of my system drive to an external- and a portable drive. I use Backup4All to backup data to the external drive, the portable drive and OneDrive. So I have 4 copies of each file in 4 different locations. Frequently I test the backup and restore a few files. And when I leave my home for a longer time I take the portable drive with me. Luckily I haven't lost a single file in over 25 years.

Reminder: If using the cloud option, don't forget to encrypt your data.

Im concerned about privacy and security when using cloud the way you suggest.

Nice one Leo, thanks a ton for breaking down backup strategies so clearly. Your video confirmed I’m on track with image and data backups, and the three-two-one rule. Feeling way more confident about keeping my data safe now!

Backup your backup. I also like ssd or nvme storage for backups. Spinny boy drives both internal and external have much higher failure rates and also way slower transfer times as well so if you want to backup and restore files quicker and safer get solid state storage if you can

I like that you put the 'click on' on the left-hand panel so I can write them down (stopping the videos if I have to) as trying to remember the sequence of them would men having to go back and forth on the video. Best computer info videos I have seen on you tube. Thank you.

I have bought a WD Elements 8TB external drive and I backup copy with robocopy everything there. Plus I plan to make images backup of my OS there too.

I use: - rsync - Luckybackup - Pika backup - Timeshift (set to include /home and all user data)

While this advise is good as far as it is... (Just back up your stuff... figure out which is best for you BUT BACK UP YOUR STUFF) I will disagree about the methods in this video. The old style of incremental backups I think no longer match the way that most people use their computer. Most people have either become somewhat experts in how a computer functions or they are completely oblivious. The traditional backups I think do not serve the vast majority of computer users. What tends to work best is for people to put all their files on a 2nd hard drive (whether internal or external) The connect yet another external hard drive to your computer once a week and SYNC the two drives and then put that drive in a fire safe. What this does... is separate your files from the computer... and if your computer crashes you can just plug the other drive into a new computer. No wasted time constantly backing up and zero time restoring. Now the recommended method of backups is the 3,2,1 rule.... but just getting in the habit of backing up is the hardest hurtle to most. I do mine once a week while having Sunday morning coffee.

I've been using Paragon's Hard Disk Manager software for years to do backups. Never had a problem restoring when needed.

Acronis Perfect Image works but is VERY confusing to use!

This video has little to do with the title! You didn't cover backup software at all.

At home, I do a full backup every season (Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn) - so I have 4 copies of my data over the year. Those get overwritten each year. Potentially I could lose 3 months worth of data in a disaster situation. I'm willing to accept that as a loss - but at least I won't lose everything. This has never happened to me thus far. I do my backups manually. Since all my data is stored in VHDX files (Virtual Hard Drives) it is easy for me to just copy and paste those to external hard drives. My VHDX files are encrypted with a bitlocker password. So if someone got hold of one of my external backup drives - they won't be able to access the data without having the password. It is worth considering that making backups causes wear and tear on your storage devices (Including SSDs) - you are in massively increasing read/write operations by backing everything up. With that in mind it's important to replace those external hard drives every so often - since those external drives only get used once every year they should last a while - but you have to keep in mind they could fail at any time unexpectedly. I would suggest that replacing them every 4 years would be a good idea. Since I have 4 backups - I can spread the cost of this by just replacing the oldest external drive once a year.

What is the best free backup folder (not image) software? Freefilesync? Syncbackup? Robosync? Why? What strategy to backup thousands of ebook?

i have always used for FREE Disk Genius. Excellent Software.

I only just found your channel the other day. After watching a few vids I subbed in because to paraphrase, you don't know what you don't know. I'm retired, and never needed to use a computer for work to begin with. Is image back up to an external storage drive _enough_ for those like me, or is there a hybrid of sorts? Re size: ~ 75% of my 1T SSD is used. Maybe a third of that is games. However, once you own a game, on Steam or Epic anyway, you can uninstall it from your machine if you need space lets say, and then reinstall later if needs be. So, if I understood you correctly, 4X for me would be a 2T ext. drive. Yes? TIA.

I'm just using the copy/paste tools within windows to make my backups. no additional software required as you just manually copy files.

If you use a Western Digital USB drive for image backup, do not encrypt it with WD Discovery. The unlock app is only 32bit and you will not be able to use it for a restore to a 64bit machine. This issue applies to Windows PE 64-bit.

EaseUS Todo Backup is the product of EaseUS, a software company headquartered in China.

Awesome Thank you for Sharing 💯✴

Three days to finish an initial backup? My initial backup with Backblaze took roughly six weeks. My C drive is a 500 GB SSD, but my main PC also has three spinning rust hard drives with 6TB, 8TB, and 10TB of capacity. For $189, Backblaze gives me two years of unlimited-size backups. Granted, the initial backup took quite a while, but now that it's done, keeping it up to date is a breeze. Given how much data I am backing up, I consider that a bargain. I no longer feel guilty for not having fully backed up my data.

I've learnt this the hard way, but back in 2005, when I lost some unique pictures. But I was 14 back then, how could I've known. 😢

Leo, I have always thought that the OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox were all synch applications, not backup applications. If you delete a file from one of those spots, does it not get deleted from your computer as well? I use a cloud backup product (which I won't name as I don't want any concerns about being a shill for them) that I have run every night for my 3 systems and my Android phone. The data goes to their cloud system. And yes I have a bunch of my google drive files tagged to be in the backup job. From my perspective, that's 2 different locations. Am I missing something with regards to my understanding of this process? Thanks.

I use a back up drive on the computer I want everything on that. Then I use SyncBack Pro to copy this drive to 3 external drives. I set SyncBack Pro to Mirror the drive to the external 3 drives, If I delete something off the internal drive, this will delete the file from the external drives. 1 lesson taught me to have more than 1 external backup when both the internal and the external drives crashed... nasty!!! Thanks Leo.

I have a Lenovo P511 PC. It has windows 10, and can't have windows 11. I bought the new ThinkStation P5 Workstation. I need to transfer all my apps and settings to the new machine. So I did a backup image of my P511. If I restore this backup image on my new P5, i believe it will replace Windows 11 that it came with, with Windows 10. What should I do please as I want my new PC to run Windows 11 but keep the apps and settings I had on my old PC. Thank you.

Just some thoughts on technology: considering the internet connectivity is an offending variable, can't cloud backup solutions be configured to backup from could ecosystems - Google, Microsoft - directly and then they (the cloud backup solution) only pick up the files and folders that are local on the PC (this can be defined by the user) and exclude anything on the PC that is in sync with Google, Microsoft, etc ecosystems - Google Drive, OneDrive etc. By this way the cloud backup solution is backing up user's cloud data directly from the cloud (,i.e. cloud to cloud) which forms bulk of our stuff these days and only picks up stuff for backup from user's PC that is local. It would be faster that way, wouldn't it.

leo just ran windows 10 ( 7? )backup. I walked away, don't know if ended properly, because I did not get message that it did end successfully. Is there a way to check like easy do?

I have a WD ssd external that I use for backup. When I try to delete backups that are no longer needed it tells me I do not have permission. I was running low on available space. So I had to reformat the drive to free up space. That seems like a pain. It also defeats the purpose of keeping 3 months worth of backups. WD provided acronis software with the drive.

@askleonotenboom I have multiple people working on the same set of files/folders shared from a one drive account. They often delete stuff which others need. I am able to restore stuff from recycle bin, but would prefer to do a image backup + incremental daily backups to another one drive account or some other place(preferably cloud). What kind of a solution would u recommend for the same?

reran manually the windowsbackup, my backup drive did not indicate a new file. The previous backup did not show any file modification. no 2nd message indicating that the backup worked successfully. again the index of c did not show any updates.

i just put things on external hdd 4tb wd elements drive

Macrium Reflect. Period.

I use personal backup...

When I backed up how to bring it back when I need it.

Does Easeus ToDo run from within Windows? I keep my data on a usb external drive. So I would be backing up an external data drive to an external data drive. Image backups are not good at recognizing windows drive letters. They, for this reason, are nerve-wracking.

I've found that backup software only backsup physical files on the drive and not cloud only files with a pointer on your drive.

I wish you would show step by step to do image backup

Can I image backup to google drive or OneDrive?

I HATE computers... especially having to set up a NEW one!!!! When you say to download a software (ON A DEVICE OTHER than the one you're trying to let up), that first step ALONE is confusing for someone who does not know the inner-workings of computers. So, I have this external hard drive, a new computer and now there's something else I need to do FIRST, I cannot even get into my new computer to tell it NOT to connect to the internet because I'm so afraid I'll choose wrong "set up as a new PC" or "Restore from a PC" - I don't know what to tell it! Do you have any videos for brand new machines and ALL the questions they ask you, etc? 😱😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Where to look for this backup file?

Backup, backup, backup...

👍👍 JimE

file:///C:/Windows/Logs/WindowsBackup/ had no date , to see if it worked properly