Who has never lost, due to improper handling, a breakdown, or even a piracy or theft, all his data? It only takes a few seconds for your photos, sounds, videos and other documents to go up in smoke. In this case, two solutions: either you lost them forever, or you took your precautions, and you saved them elsewhere.

No, backing up your data (regularly) is not a waste of time, quite the contrary. There is still little, you had to use a whole armada of DVD, CD-R, even floppies (for the older ones), media that are getting older and not eternal. Today, progress allows you to preserve your files in a much less time-consuming way – simple, fast and (relatively) economical.

In concrete terms, there are several solutions for you: manual copying on physical media, automated backup software, copying data to a server (FTP, NAS), or storage in the cloud. Follow the guide.With the good at cloud hosting you will have the best deal now.

Physical backup

The most obvious solution is of course to make a local backup. In other words, use a spare drive. Prefer the USB external hard drive to the internal hard drive: you will have nothing to install manually, no hardware to dismount, and you can take your data with you everywhere, like a USB key.

• The purchase of a large external drive of several terabytes, in the case of a mass backup (photos, videos shovel), can you back to more than a hundred euros. In the field of external hard drives, it’s the fair, there are any sizes, shapes, capacities and at all prices.
• Unless you come across a really failed series the solution is worth in terms of efficiency and robustness. It will differ in speed depending on the chosen technology: USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB-C, HDD or SSD (like the very good SanDisk Extreme 900 SSD) etc. Note that most external drives offer advanced archiving solutions, and data encryption software.

For less massive backups, there are USB keys, conventional or wireless, can now achieves comfortable storage capacity. We can mention the SanDisk iXpand (iPhone), with a maximum of 128 GB and sold 119 euros, or Connect Wireless Stick (Android).

Of course, the problem you may face is: if you make a backup on April 1st, let time slip and you lose your data three months later, you will not recover all of your data via your external drive. Hence the usefulness, the very great utility, backup software, so-called synchronization software, or automated backup.

It is simply a software that will copy all your data on a regular basis (every week, every other day, every day, as desired), and this automatically, from your computer to your disk external. There is a wide range, but if you must choose, choose Cobian Backup and SyncBack for free, or SmartSync Pro for pay.