Windows 10 and backups question

[Gidney N Cloyd]

I could use some advice from folks well versed in Win10 on how to set up a backup routine for my personal files.

Quick background: I bought a Win 10 laptop about 2 and a half years ago. Last month it crashed and I lost everything I'd created (writing, graphics, photos, etc) since I bought it plus files I'd copied over from older computers to organize and lots of stuff I'd scanned from hard copy. After 20 years of being the guy at work telling people to back their stuff up, I retired and got sloppy.
I got the computer up again with a new ss drive and fresh OS install but I had to send the old drive out for recovery.

The files are now on route back to me and I want to set up a backup plan for when they get here. Win10 seems to have options built in, including OneDrive and configurations for external drives. I'd rather stay away from cloud storage except maybe as a backup of a backup, but I'll listen if you want to sell me on the virtues of it.

My preference would be to make my internal drive the main one to work from and a new external drive for frequent, hopefully automated backups.

So my main question is, lets say I've hooked the external drive up and I'm holding the thumb drive with my recovered files in my hand, ready to copy-- what's your recommendation for the best way to proceed?

TIA for any thoughts you may have.

[Abnredleg]

1. Don't be afraid of Cloud backup

It’s very reliable and secure. I worked in IT for 25 years and moved most of our agency’s applications to the cloud by the time I retired. For backup of my personal PC I use Carbonite Cloud backup - very affordable and designed to allow you to easily recover from malware.

If you proceed with an external hard drive, you will need to keep it unattached from you PC if you wish to protect your data from malware since the new viruses are designed to detect and encrypt backup files. This means you would have to manually attach the external drive every time you backup.

Remember, all detectable hard drives can be encrypted during a malware attack.

[BootinUp]

2. Macrium reflect free version is what I'm using

It’s a full disc image solution. You can open and browse the images for any files you need or restore whole images. The default backup plan is a monthly full image and daily differential images. It sets up quite easily. You can also create a rescue usb flash drive for that time when you can’t even boot. Used it successfully for years

[orwell]

5. +100 n/m

[msongs]

3. for external drive try free file sync aka FreeFileSync simple n easy to use

I keep all data files on their own hard drive wired into my desktop and back up once a week tho its mostly art files and dont change that often

[OxQQme]

4. I use Macrium Reflect. It's free.

I use a usb3 external SSD to store a complete 'picture' of the C: drive before I make any changes
to my up-to-date win10.
A 16g thumb drive, with access to the supplied rescue media, will 'place' the last known good C:
(or any saved partition) back into place.

I have no need for incremental saves but that's an option.

Additionally, I can go into any of the saved 'pictures' and pull out any item to my current desktop.
I leave the external drive unplugged until I need it. For me that's once a month.
Takes about 20 minutes to save or return the 264g C: for me.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. Some good things to look into here. Thanks!

[ManiacJoe]

7. My backups are done old-school.

I use a batch script (*.cmd) to use XCOPY and ROBOCOPY commands to copy the new/changed source files to external drives.

I can run the script manually as desired or schedule it via TaskScheduler.

I only use my cloud drives for file transfers to other devices/people.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. One of the advantages of the pro version of window$...

...is being able run the backups to a network mapped drive.
I feels cleaner to me but I've got some OCD going on.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. I appreciate your take on it. Functionally, it's not far off from what I'd like to do.