[SOLVED] Best way to back up laptop?

[abbarich]

My laptop is 3 years old, so I thought now was the time I should back everything up, as I'm sure I heard 5 years is the usual life expectancy of a laptop. I want to store several word doc's, MP3's, MPEG's etc, so I can transfer them to the next laptop. Would a USB stick be ok for this? I'm not sure I'd get my entire laptop content onto one USB stick. Or do you think USB sticks are capable of that? Or would you recommend an external hard drive, (which I've never used before). Thanks.

 

[RealBeast]

I would go with an external HDD, which are relatively cheap and then really back it up using the free version of Macrium Reflect so that you could fully restore it to the laptop drive.

And important information should be further backed up to somewhere else, cloud or hardware in the event that your laptop fails when attached to the external drive for example.

To simply transfer data you have the choice of using storage (hardware or cloud) and then downloading or just network them and do a transfer.

 

[USAFRet]

An external drive for a backup Image of the entire drive. Macrium Reflect does this easily.
A couple of flash drives for your personal content. Doc/Video/Music/Pics/etc.

 

[abbarich]

Thanks for the replies! I'll get an external HDD. I've had a look on amazon and there's tons of hard drives. There's one called Kesu which is only £21 (UK). Seems a bit cheap,but good reviews. Capacity is 160GB. Would that be enough? There's also a Toshiba £37 with 1TB capacity. Is there a HDD you'd recommend, and what amount of storage capacity should I be looking for? Also how long do external hard drives last? Thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for the replies! I'll get an external HDD. I've had a look on amazon and there's tons of hard drives. There's one called Kesu which is only £21 (UK). Seems a bit cheap,but good reviews. Capacity is 160GB. Would that be enough? There's also a Toshiba £37 with 1TB capacity. Is there a HDD you'd recommend, and what amount of storage capacity should I be looking for? Also how long do external hard drives last? Thanks.

Ignore Amazon reviews, mostly.
Utter garbage, or purposely misleading, or outright scam.

160GB drives have not been made/sold for a long time.

Go with a name brand.
1 or 2TB from Toshiba/Seagate/Hitachi/WesternDigital.

This:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD-Elements-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B06VVS7S94

or this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-HDTB410EK3AA-2-5-Inch-Portable-External/dp/B07997KKSK/

 

[USAFRet]

And ultimately, you should be doing "backups" all the time. Not just once.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[abbarich]

Many thanks for that! Yes, that's the Toshiba HDD I saw. It's 1 TB capacity, so that sounds like it might be enough storage. Do you know how long HDD's last? I'm sure I heard that USB's last about 10 years, so do HDD's last longer than that? Thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

Many thanks for that! Yes, that's the Toshiba HDD I saw. It's 1 TB capacity, so that sounds like it might be enough storage. Do you know how long HDD's last? I'm sure I heard that USB's last about 10 years, so do HDD's last longer than that? Thanks.

I personally have had a drive die at 5 weeks out of the box.
Also, I have a few hard drives that are near 20 years old and still work.

Don't depend on "this type of device will last X years".
Multiple copies on multiple devices is the backup plan you want.