Hello so I am interested in purchasing an external hard drive for the purpose
of backing up my data mainly audio/video files. I have never actually
backed anything up before and am curious as to how to go about backing up my
data.

Is it as simple as connecting to drive through USB and just copying/pasting the files
onto the external hard drive or is there a much more intelligent way to go about it?

Thanks!Disk Imaging software takes a "snapshot" of your drive as it exists at the time you create the image. You can then restore the entire image or any file(s) or folder(s) you choose. It is a virtually foolproof way of backing up your system and providing a safe haven in the EVENT of a catastrophe that requires you to blow away your system partition and restore it to a previous state. It also allows you to "test" various software and be confident that you have a the ability to return to the prior state any time you choose.

 
I use Acronis True Image. It is the best of breed, but it isn't free. The best free alternative is Macrium Reflect.


1) I create an image of my system partition once a week to a second hard drive and keep the 2 or 3 most recent images. I also image my other partitions about once a month. I always enable "verify image" in the options. It takes a little longer, but insures a valid image.

2) I also create an image before performing any drive level function (ie, changing the size of a partition) or making any significant change to the OS (installing a service pack, upgrading IE, etc). Also sometimes before installing new software.

3) Images may be created on any medium (cd, dvd, external drive, etc). For obvious reasons they should not be stored on the same drive you are imaging. The best option is a second internal hd if you have one and, if you're really ambitious, to an external drive as well (one week to the internal, one week to the external). That's actually the procedure I follow.

4) Images may be created "in the background" within the OS. If you need to restore the system partition, that will need to be done before the OS loads. You can start the process within the APPLICATION in the OS and it will then tell you it needs to REBOOT to finish the process. Alternatively, you can boot to a "recovery disk" which you can create when you first install the software (or to the application disk itself if you have one). Other partitions can be restored without a reboot.
Ditto...

Remember the verifying step in Line #1.There's no operating system on this second hard drive just files, what's the difference between creating an image of it vs just copying and pasting the files of my internal hard drive onto my external.The 1 advantage i can think of is if it's burned to DVD as an Image you have another source for your data in case of HDD failure...

The other advantage is you don't neccessarily have to use all that HDD space to access your data...Thanks! Anytime Bud... Quote from: patio on December 07, 2015, 01:22:18 PM

The 1 advantage i can think of is if it's burned to DVD as an Image you have another source for your data in case of HDD failure...

The only use for image backups that I can see is for an OS partition so you backup the MBR etc. For backing up folders, e.g. My Documents or whatever, why not just copy them to another hard drive or burn them to an optical disk? Personally I prefer using an internal or external hard drive, as DVDs or BD disks can get scratched or damaged. To guard against the possibility of HDD failure, use more than one, as Allan describes.