Back, Back, Back It Up!

It’s 7:30AM, you just woke up and realized that you forgot to print out that ten page research paper on the eating habits of bighorn sheep.  You rush over to your computer and one glance at your screen makes your heart sink-you see the dreaded blue screen.  After a few attempted restarts, you find that your beloved system is completely trashed (it was probably a nasty virus from that dirty website you were visiting last night).  You’re heart-broken.  Now the world will never know how to properly nourish their bighorn sheep…and your zoology professor is probably going to fail you.  It then hits you that all of this could have been avoided if you had simply been cautious enough to back up your work at the end of the day.  The worst part is, you know how incredibly simple it really is, you were just being negligent.

…Or, maybe you don’t know, in which case i’m going to tell you exactly how easy it is.  Before you can begin your daily backup regiment, however, you need some sort of backup software.  There are plenty of software suites out there that will run backups for you, however in a lot of cases they cost money.  Luckily, emptying your wallet is not necessary in order to keep your data protected from dying hard drives.  With a simple program called SyncBack, you can have your data automatically backed up to either another drive or even an FTP server.  That means that you barely have to do any work!  Setting up the program is as easy as selecting a source and destination directory, deciding whether you want to backup or sync and then creating a schedule.  Below I have included a few screen shots to help you along.

Step 1. Create a new profile. 

Step 2. Choose a profile name.

Step 3. Select Backup or Sync (Backup Recommended).

Step 4. Enter your source and destination directories.  This is where you’ll be backing up from and where you want to backup to.  Usually you will want to backup to a different drive than that of the source.  At this point, you can save your profile, UNLESS you would like to use some of the advanced options such as compression or FTP upload.  If you would, continue following along.  If not, skip ahead to step 6.

Step 5. Advanced options, compression or FTP upload.

Step 6. Save your profile and create a schedule for automated backups.

Step 7. You can schedule automated backups as frequently as you wish.  Just remember to enter your Windows password when prompted so that Windows can properly log you in to run your backup if your computer is logged out.  Once you select an appropriate schedule, hit APPLY and OK.  Your profile should now be saved with SyncBack.  Be sure to check the program every couple of days to be sure it is actually backing up properly.  It is also a good idea to verify the integrity of your backup copies every so often.  Backup copies are no good if they’re corrupt or missing!

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