Computer ??

[jttheclockman]

Years ago I bought a product called ClickFree back up hard drive. It actually saved my bacon when my computer went in the dumper. I had used it on the old computer and was able to save just about all my files and when I got this new computer I was able to transfer those to it. The old computer ran on windows XP 64. This is windows 10 . What I want to do is buy a new one or something like it to once again backup all things on this computer. So if for some reason it dies on me and I have to buy new computer I can do the same thing. Now I am not sure they still make this ClickFree item any more and if it is even compatible to windows 10. What was so nice about it was I did nothing. Just plugged into usb port and it did everything automatically. Then if I at a later date wanted to add to files I could just plug in again and it will just add new files.

My question is what is a good system to use that can do basically the same thing and please do not tell me the cloud. I want a hard drive and not a flash drive. Now my computer can back things up but it is a restore point type thing, but it is only as good as the computer and hard drive are operational. My other hard drive was not and thus I saved myself by having that clickfree. I bought that off QVC many years ago. I want something as simple as that device was. What say you? Thanks.

 

[Lew]

Why the aversion to the cloud? That's the simplest and easiest way to make sure you will always have access to your files.

 

[monophoto]

John

I have both a hard drive backup and a cloud backup. Frankly, I think that today cloud backup is perfectly OK, but I've had the experience of having a backup hard drive fail, and so I choose to have redundant backup - I'm a belt and suspenders-type guy.

There are many suppliers of backup drives, and they are fairly reasonably priced. Two of the more reputable names in the industry are Western Digital and Seagate. Amazon has a good selection, but you can also find them at Best Buy, Staples, Office Max, etc. I would probably opt to go to Staples just because their techs are usually knowledgeable and can be helpful in making a buying decision. Best Buy has sales people, but they don't seem to know about anything other than extended warranties.

You have a choice between an old-fashioned rotating disk and SSD, although I think you have to pay a bit more for SSD on a $/GB of memory basis. Mine is a disk, but that's because I've had it for around 10 years. I probably should retire it, but it ain't broke - - - In theory, SSD should be more reliable than a physical disk simply because there are no moving parts, but there is a mollecular-level wearout process in SSD, and eventually the amount of memory you have will shrink.

One thing - my experience is that regardless of what kind of backup system you have, you need to have a discipline of periodically cleaning up the backup. My backup hard drive is 1 TB, while my computer hard drive is only 500GB - so after the initial backup, I was only using around 300GB of that 1TB hard drive. But over time, clutter accumulates, and there have been times whre I've found that I've used more than 900GB of the backup drive. The solution is simple - just delete stuff that is redundant. I've found that the word offender is Qucken - a Quicken backup file is about 200 MB, and the program creates a new backup file each time you backup the data. So backup files reproduce like rabbits!

One other thing - most add-on drives come with software that you can set up to do backups on a scheduled basis. But if you are running windows 10, there is a built-in feature called 'file history' that will do essentially the same thing.

 

[derekdd]

We use Carbonite here on both our laptops. It is definitely cloud based and has a small sub fee.

We have 20+ novels we've written, and I have a bunch of academic stuff from dissertation to research papers written all stored there, and on other cloud-based sites. Due to how important those items are to us, we did our homework before buying in.

We've been very pleased with it. I used to use Apple's Time Capsule which is a physical drive connected to the house wifi. Don't have it any longer and wasn't that happy with it.

Good luck with your search.

 

[jttheclockman]

Why the aversion to the cloud? That's the simplest and easiest way to make sure you will always have access to your files.

security

 

[goldendj]

security

That was the biggest consideration when I researched cloud backup a few years ago. Many if not most providers now offer encryption *before* uploading--it all happens on your machine and the key never gets stored on the cloud. So they can't actually read your data, and if you forget the key neither can you, so write it down somewhere.

I've been very happy with CrashPlan for reasonable pricing, ease of use, and (critical for me) Linux support. While I have local backups I sleep better knowing a house fire or other local disaster won't wipe everything out.

 

[carlmorrell]

My career in computer engineering started in the 1970s. I will NEVER use cloud storage. I have a Synology diskstation that is my personal cloud. I have been using it for almost a decade with no complaints. It allows me to attach it as a drive over my wireless lan. I keep it turned off to minimize the chance of intrusion and only turn on when I am doing backups. If my kids want to get to old photos, I turn it on, and remind them of the password and they can access it from anywhere via the web. One of the nice things is it has redundant drives, I currently have 2 2-terabyte drives in it. Synology uses their own type of RAID. YMMV

 

[mmayo]

I use a FREE excellent program called Karen's Replicator. I set what is backed up, when it is backed up and to which other storage device like another hard drive or USB backup drive. Each week it becomes active during the night and backs up documents, photos, downloads, videos, desktop etc to a connected USB 2 TB drive. It looks at each file, decides if it has been changed, if not it moves to the next file,if it has it gets backed up. It is SO FAST!!! (After the first time). See attached video. My backups are actual files that can be used on a new computer instantly if needed during a crash. I've been using it for ten years without a complaint.

This year we purchased a Buffalo 8TB NAS drive. It is two 4 TB drive in an RAID system. Each of our three computers looks there to get data. This way we don't both edit files causing issues. Karen's replicator found that drive and those files and backed them up to my external USB drive without a whimper. Even with the NAS Raid system I still backup as Buffalo tells you.

IT IS FREE. It is NOT the cloud, but rather YOUR cloud.

 

[TonyL]

Costco sells some very ease to use portable solid state hard drives. I believe bought a Seagate. I do rely on the cloud too.

 

[jttheclockman]

My career in computer engineering started in the 1970s. I will NEVER use cloud storage. I have a Synology diskstation that is my personal cloud. I have been using it for almost a decade with no complaints. It allows me to attach it as a drive over my wireless lan. I keep it turned off to minimize the chance of intrusion and only turn on when I am doing backups. If my kids want to get to old photos, I turn it on, and remind them of the password and they can access it from anywhere via the web. One of the nice things is it has redundant drives, I currently have 2 2-terabyte drives in it. Synology uses their own type of RAID. YMMV

Wow I looked at the price of some of those diskstations and they are more than what my computer cost.

 

[rixstix]

My career in computer engineering started in the 1970s. I will NEVER use cloud storage. I have a Synology diskstation that is my personal cloud. I have been using it for almost a decade with no complaints. It allows me to attach it as a drive over my wireless lan. I keep it turned off to minimize the chance of intrusion and only turn on when I am doing backups. If my kids want to get to old photos, I turn it on, and remind them of the password and they can access it from anywhere via the web. One of the nice things is it has redundant drives, I currently have 2 2-terabyte drives in it. Synology uses their own type of RAID. YMMV

Ditto. I have a pair of Synology diskstation boxes each with a matched pair of WD RED harddrives. A 213 and 216 IIRC

 

[d_bondi]

I have a Synology DS220+ NAS with a pair of 12TB WD Red Pro HDD. The whole setup was about $760. It is shared storage, backup and remote accessible when I want it to be. One think I really like about this setup is that the NAS does a great job of managing the files across our split platform family as we have both Windows and Mac platforms. I have also used both WD and Seagate external USB HDD for backup and they worked just fine. Mosts have backup software that comes with them. In my work life (before I retired) we used Microsoft OneDrive, hosted by Microsoft enterprise wide.

 

[Rick_G]

Do a search for usb hard drive. You will find multiple items that will let you connect an external hard drive to your computer via usb for $50 or less. I have 4 hard drives I use for this. In 30 to 40 years of messing with computers I have only had 1 actual hard drive failure and that was in a thunderstorm that took out other things in the house as well. I have had flash drives fail in a short time as they have limited read/write cycles.

 

[jttheclockman]

Need to clarify something because I am getting confused here. I am not a computer nerd. I am lucky I can turn the darn thing on. What I liked about the clickfree system I had was I plug it in and it formats and copies all files. Then I unplug. couple months down the road I plug it in again to now download any new files or photos or things I added since last time. It did not rewrite the same stuff over it just added to it. This is what I am looking for. something that I can plug and unplug and not leave plugged in. If I do something real special I will then plug back in to copy to this device. I am afraid if I buy a separate hard drive when I unplug and plug back in it copies everything all over again for redundant copying wasting space on hard drive. The clickfree was a spinning disc and it worked well. I just do not have the knowledge to follow windows that tell me I have to do this and that and move this here and there. Simplicity is the name of the game with my search. Thanks.

I should note that my antivirus protection company offers a cloud based backup system. I just not sure about those things for security even from a security agency. pretty ironic I guess.

 

[MRDucks2]

I am a fan of the little Western Digital Passport family of portable hard drives. They are now in both old fashioned Hard Disk and Solid State. I use both with one backing up my computer and the other backing up the backup. Poor mans RAID array if you will. The reason I use both is that a standard hard disk may die, but there are usually warnings and a chance to recover the data from the disk. When a Solid State Drive dies, it dies quick and is usually unrecoverable.

They are generally in the $50–$80 range each, plug in via USB and come with backup software available either already loaded or downloadable.

 

[jttheclockman]

I am a fan of the little Western Digital Passport family of portable hard drives. They are now in both old fashioned Hard Disk and Solid State. I use both with one backing up my computer and the other backing up the backup. Poor mans RAID array if you will. The reason I use both is that a standard hard disk may die, but there are usually warnings and a chance to recover the data from the disk. When a Solid State Drive dies, it dies quick and is usually unrecoverable.

They are generally in the $50–$80 range each, plug in via USB and come with backup software available either already loaded or downloadable.

Funny I was just looking at those and only saw the digital. Would like to get the spinner. It is not going to get overused. Just want that peace of mind because of what I went through with my old computer. I thought I lost all my files including all favorite sites that I accumulated over years as well as all my photos. But luck I had that backup. I eventually pulled the hard drive out of the old computer and after the person who looked at it for me told me it was shot I told him I wanted to hang onto it. Glad I did because all it needed was an external more powerful power source and I got it to run. Thanks.

 

[jrista]

@jttheclockman You shouldn't rule out cloud backup. In the past it wasn't all that secure. Today its pretty darn secure.

Here is the main thing about backups, though. If you keep your backup in the same location as the computer you are backing up, the ONLY thing it really protects against is your main computer hard drive going bad. But a local backup does nothing to protect your data from more devastating disasters...fire, flood, hurricane, etc.

With SSDs these days, or even more so NVMe drives (not sure exactly what you have in your computer), we've moved from MTBFs (mean time before failure) of classic HDD drives (platters spinning) of anywhere from 50,000 hours to maybe a couple 100,000 hours, to millions of hours. With modern drives, wear leveling, the fact that they are solid state (no moving parts), etc. the chance of a drive going bad is so remote now. You don't sound like the kind of guy who would even use a computer for a hundred thousand hours, let alone millions.

A cloud backup on the other hand, puts your backups in geographically distributed locations. This means not only would your data be protected if, say, your home flooded or burned, but also if one of the data centers encountered a disaster. You can encrypt on the fly these days, so your data is pushed up to the cloud secure. You can get at your data from anywhere, on any computer even (anyone's, even mobile devices). Data is encrypted locally with a service like IDrive, using secure encryption (256bit AES, a synchronous form of encryption with a key that only you would know...its never sent to the server...however, you MUST protect your key as if you lose it, then you lose your backup data too! Such are the consequences of security.)

Here is a good article on some modern cloud backup options:

The best cloud backup services in 2024

The best cloud backup services help prevent your data from being lost to hardware failure or physical disasters

www.tomsguide.com

If you really want ease of use, broad protection from many possible events that could cost you your data, and REAL security, then cloud is, IMHO, the better option than just a local drive. A much, much better option. Something like IDrive, once set up, is very easy to use, and when you do things like snapshot tracking, you can actually keep track of a history of the changes to files that are very important, so you can not only restore the last backed up copy, but even traverse a history of the changes made back to the point you first backed it up.

 

[sorcerertd]

Remember that a failed drive is one thing, but damage due to fire or flood is another. If you make a backup, make sure it's safely and securely stored. This is one reason that cloud storage is a good bet. It is at least a good place to keep files that take up a lot of space, such as video and pictures. Normal word documents and spreadsheets that have sensitive information in them will easily fit on a USB thumb drive. This thumb drive will hold a ridiculous amount of data, probably way more than you will ever need to back up. With either option, your data can be accessed from another computer if you need or want to do so.

John, considering you are not a "computer nerd", this probably won't apply for you, but for anyone else reading this...
For many years I used Paragon Hard Disk Manager, but I am somewhat of a computer geek. I've built and repaired many computers for myself, friends, and family. This has been an extremely easy and powerful program for me. It was very expensive originally, I think about $400, but then became free for limited home use. I see they are charging for it again, but at a much lower price than when I discovered it. As far as backup, I just cloned my drive, either to another drive or a partition on another drive. If one fails, I just physically swap it out for the backup one. That, or make a new drive from the backup and put that in. If your back up is current, you would never even know anything happened since it's an exact copy, even the boot info. I installed a hot swap bay on my current desktop, so I can just use them like an old floppy disc drive. It's nice because I can also partition, repair or make new drives for other PCs using the software on mine.

 

[Woodchipper]

I bought a Verbatim CD/DVD player and backup from Staples for about $50. I have Outlook email when Spectrum provides great internet service with email. Why do I need two emails? BTW, I don't use gmail, either.

 

[jttheclockman]

I bought a Verbatim CD/DVD player and backup from Staples for about $50. I have Outlook email when Spectrum provides great internet service with email. Why do I need two emails? BTW, I don't use gmail, either.

WHAT?

 

[Woodchipper]

BTW, my backup has 2T memory, if that is the correct term. Outlook was mentioned as storage. I have plenty of storage w/o another.