Best methods to backup your hard drives

Do you have trouble thinking of the best methods to backup your hard drives?

Well, hard drive backup does make for an interesting topic – so that’s why this article is here.

In this article, we’ll look at three of the best methods to backup hard drives and give you peace of mind, knowing your precious data is safe and sound. Let's get started right away ...

Method 1: Create A Drive Image

The first approach to hard drive backup is to use a good backup software to create a disk image. Why is this one of the best methods to backup hard drives? Well, because it is a tried and tested method and all the big corporations use this approach as the standard.

A drive image is nothing but a detailed representation of every bit and byte in your hard disk. Once you create a drive image, you’re free to restore it to any hard drive you want. PC just crashed? No problem. Restore the drive image into a new hard drive. I like to create a drive image just after installing a clean version of Windows XP. This allows me to restore and revert to a clean hard disk image in case some virus or malware affects my PC.

Norton Ghost is one of the best products in the industry for creating a drive image. I’ve used it since the days of DOS, and it has proven time and again to be at the top of its game. The latest version supports Windows XP and incremental backups – meaning you can create on drive image snapshot and keep adding changes to it.

Acronis True Image is a competing product which has garnered many awards too. I haven’t tried it out, but I certainly will, since many people have raved about its performance and ease-of-use.

Method 2: Backup To Another Hard Drive, CD or DVD

Another ‘best method’ to backup hard drives is to use another hard drive. What do I mean by another hard drive? Well, you can simply copy your existing important data to another hard disk in desktop PC. Another approach is to get an external portable hard drive and copy your stuff there.

Of course, you should understand that there are risks. The second hard drive that you backup to may also fail. Some alternatives are to use CD and DVD media for backups as they are much less likely to fail compared to hard drives.

Method 3: Use An Online Backup Service

Using an online backup service is also fast becoming one of the best methods to backup hard drives. Essentially, these services allow you to store gigabytes of data online for a fee.

The huge advantage of online backup services is that they are resilient to disaster and theft. If you were to backup stuff on your own, then in the event of disaster or theft, you lose everything. Online backup services, however, have huge, clustered servers that are designed to withstand such calamities.

The downside of online backup services would be the cost. However, these are fast coming down.

Xdrive is a great online backup service, with the one of the most competitive rates around. It is extremely popular for storage of photos, music and videos amongst the younger crowd. Do check it out if you’re looking for an online solution to your backup problems.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has shown you the best methods to backup your hard drive. Try applying any one of the above methods the next time you feel you need to backup data. If you backup data in the above ways on a regular basis, I can guarantee you’ll have a much smoother computing experience.