I back up once a week, Saturday mornings. Image to a 1 TB drive. I have POP3 email and have it set to save messages on server for 21 days in case I restore an image a week old, I don't loose my emails, I will loose the ones I sent, but they are not that important to me.
I also copy critical data onto other hard drives, I now have 4 external hard drives (USB) for back up data, and rotate them. The one I use for Desktop images would be external drive number 5.
If I do a lot of work before my back up day, I will back up sooner.
I also spread critical data over my computers, so that data in on other computers as well. I also keep one hard drive off site in case of fire.
You can go overboard backing up. I spend 3-4 hours once a week backing up my computers, it works fine for me, and has saved me on occasions when things go haywire.
Just remember, most people don't back up at all. |
