{"id":314,"date":"2012-04-28T19:46:32","date_gmt":"2012-04-29T00:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulbegley.com\/2012\/04\/computer-backup-recommendations\/"},"modified":"2012-04-28T19:46:32","modified_gmt":"2012-04-29T00:46:32","slug":"computer-backup-recommendations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/?p=314","title":{"rendered":"Computer Backup Recommendations"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first in a series of reference articles that answer frequently asked questions from friends, family, and clients.  I will update these articles as required. 
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or recommendations.<\/p>\n

Required hardware and software
<\/strong>    Software – Acronis TrueImage 2012
    Hardware – external hard drive – USB, eSATA, Firewire<\/p>\n

Overview<\/strong>
I recommend imaging all PC systems.  Imaging the system is easy, and fast (1GB\/min typically).  Imaging software takes a ‘snapshot’ of your computer.  This snapshot can be used to restore your system automatically.  By restore, I mean if your hard drive dies, you can install a new drive (same size or larger), and restore *everything* in one operation – Operating System (Windows), applications, and data.  After the restore, your system will be *exactly* where it was when you performed the backup.<\/p>\n

In addition, the image can be used to restore individual files and folders, but more importantly, if your system is compromised due to a virus or system problem, you can restore the entire system back to a known, good state.<\/p>\n

Acronis (and other imaging software) can be configured to image your system on a schedule (Friday nights for example).  You can also setup the software to automatically shut down your computer after the backup is completed.  I typically do this monthly on all our computers, setting up the jobs before I got to bed and having the system shut down.<\/p>\n

We have three external USB drives – one reserved for my business systems, and two for home systems.  All my backup drives are encrypted (I use Bitlocker).  I recommend selecting a hard drive with enough capacity to hold at least two backup images for all your systems.<\/p>\n

Reference links
<\/u><\/strong>Rosewill RX-358 V2 BLK (Black) 3.5″ SATA to USB & eSATA Enclosure w\/Int.80mm fan
    http:\/\/www.newegg.com\/Product\/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817173042<\/a><\/p>\n

Acronis True Image Home 2012 \u2013 upgrade and special offers often available from Acronis
http:\/\/www.acronis.com\/homecomputing\/products\/trueimage\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Acronis TrueImage Home 2012 from Newegg
http:\/\/www.newegg.com\/Product\/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832200030<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first in a series of reference articles that answer frequently asked questions from friends, family, and clients.  I will update these articles as required.  Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or recommendations. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,11,16,17],"tags":[22,26,43,62],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hardware","category-microsoft","category-security","category-software","tag-acronis","tag-backup","tag-hardware","tag-software-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6YWFc-54","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paulbegley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}