Today is http://www.worldbackupday.com/. It's a relatively new "holiday", only just starting last year. It was started by a couple of reddit users. In the first year it achieved significant success, got good media coverage, and really made a difference getting people to back up. Let's hope this year is every bit as successful. If you've never done backups before, the best time to start was yesterday. The second best time to start is today

What is a Backup

So, what exactly is a backup? It's a secure, VERSIONED, copy of your files. It should also be automatic. Versioning is key, as just mirroring isn't a backup: if you accidentally delete from the source, the copy is deleted too. If the source corrupts, the copy also corrupts. As such RAID is not a backup as it fails to keep your files secure from the biggest threat to them: yourself (sorry, it's true, and eventually we all do it, myself included. I'm still kicking myself for formatting the wrong hard drive last year, thankfully I was backed up properly). Another key aspect is it's automatic. A backup doesn't need to be automatic, strictly speaking, but if it isn't you will soon forget to do it or say "I'll do it later". An automatic backup doesn't have these issues.

Another aspect of a good backup is it's in different states and different locations. Location means things like local (in same PC), on-site (USB/LAN backup), off-site (controlled backup off the premises), and cloud (third-party backup off the premises). A local backup housed in the same PC provides the least added protection, as anything that damages the PC runs the risk of also damaging the backup, but the advantage is restoration is fast when you screw something up. Good practice is an on-site (it provides some distance from the original source) and off-site/cloud. This makes it so you have fast restoration if something very local to your PC happens, but also can restore is a more generalized disaster happens from your off-site/cloud backup. Next is states. States means things like online (as in powered on), offline (powered off), optical (DVDs and the like), mechanical (magnetic hard drives), solid-state (flash-based), tape (hey, it had to be said), and cloud (which is usually a hybrid of the other states). You want different states because it lowers your risk of losing everything in one go. If all your backups are on mechanical hard drives always online, a single power surge in the area could kill them all. The easiest states achievable for most people is one online backup, one offline backup (an external hard drive updated weekly/monthly and otherwise unplugged), and a cloud backup (I'll get to the issues with cloud backups later).

A simple way to achieve an off-site backup without relying on remote backup software or the cloud is what I like to call "The Poor Man's Remote backup". Simply buy two external hard drives. Back up to them, then take one to a friend or family member's house (or to work) and leave it there. Continue backing up to the other external hard drive. Then, at the end of a couple of weeks or the month take the external hard drive you have to the place you are storing the other one and take the other one home and start backing up to that one. Repeat every couple of weeks or month. Sure, your off-site backup isn't all the way up-to-date, but it's definitely a lot better than nothing. IMPORTANT: as soon as your backup leaves your possession it NEEDS to be encrypted. Encryption is always a good idea for backups since generally they are easier to steal than your whole computer, but it's a necessity for any backup that leaves your property.

How to Backup

So, how do you get started? Well, there is no such thing as the perfect backup that works for everyone. Everyone has different needs and as such no single method works for everyone. The important thing is you get started backing up.

Most people know to back up their documents, music, and videos, but they overlook other things. Things like your browser bookmarks, program settings, system settings, and passwords (if using a password database). These things can be equally important and are very simple to back up.

Browser bookmarks: Most browsers now offer a way to sync your bookmarks through the cloud. This also acts as a bare-bones backup system as most don't offer versioning (though some do in limited ways). A better way to do it, and to do it locally, is to back up your bookmarks yourself by backing up the location they are stored. Most browsers offer a way to back up their bookmarks when managing them, and you can also just simply include the application settings folder for your browser in your backup, as this is usually where the bookmarks folder is stored (this also has the advantage of backing up your browser settings, which may be very important for you).

program settings: Generally speaking on windows, most programs store their settings in %appdata% and in the registry. System Restore takes care of the registry, and adding %appdata% to your backup is simple enough. On linux it's usually in the dot folders in your home directory. I'm not certain if that's the same on Mac OS X since Mac OS X applications are very self-contained.

system settings: For the most part this is your registry on Windows and various dot folders for applications on Linux as well as some stuff in the /etc/ folder and a few other places. Once again, I'm not quite certain where this is on Mac OS X.

passwords: if using a password manager, it is very important to back this up. Browser password managers store the passwords in the %appdata% folder for the browser (another reason to back it up). LastPass has the ability to export locally as well, which is quite useful. http://helpdesk.lastpass.com/lastpass-pocket/. KeePass has a very robust trigger system, which among other things, is perfect for keeping versioned backups of your KeePass database. http://keepass.info/help/kb/kb091127_trigger_examples.html. If using KeePass, I highly recommend it. A really cool way to do it is to set a trigger that sees if a host is online after opening the database, if it is, it backs up to a windows file share on that computer. Now you have a backup of your database not on your computer (this obviously only works if you have another computer at home that you trust).

Backup Software

In order to achieve automation, some program needs to be used. As mentioned, doing backups manually is not wise as eventually you'll get lax in doing them. It can be something as simple as a script you've created or as complex as a very expensive program with lots of grade-A technical support. This is definitely one of the things that makes it so there is no perfect backup solution that works for everyone, as everyone has different needs from the software. There are also four basic types of backup software: desktop backup software, centralized backup software, remote/cloud backup software, and system (drive) imaging tools. I'll list some of the good ones I've dealt with or seen below.

Desktop Backup software

This is what most people deal with for their personal backups. This software is installed on your computer and usually backs up to another hard drive, external hard drive, DVD, or networked storage. Some desktop backup software I've found useful over the years for various tasks incldue:

Windows:

http://www.areca-backup.org/ -- powerful, efficient backup with a robust recovery system. It does rely on Java, though and doesn't have a built-in scheduler meaning Task scheduler must be used. It also has a bit of a learning curve to get used to it, but once there it's quite powerful.

http://sites.google.com/site/thebackupmonkey/ -- This was primarily designed for remote backups, but I put it here instead as it does backups to external drives just fine. The Interface takes getting used to and it's not without the quirks, but it also offers features not found in other programs such as a nice plugin system that allows for backing up SQL databases. It's Java Based and I know it works on Mac OS X, though from what I've heard Linux support is broken in a few aspects.

http://www.cobiansoft.com/ -- A nice and effective backup program under constant development (the newest version just entered beta). It offers robust features and is simple to use. The two main problems of the program is it's impractical to do continuous incremental backups, so a full backup needs to be done every month or so (which can be set up within the program, since it's a known issue). Also it doesn't deal well with restoring only the files you want/not restoring deleted files. However, since any program can be used to restore (just standard zip archives), it still offers a lot in a very simple package.

http://www.crashplan.com/ -- Available in free and paid versions. The free version has ads and limits you to backing up once a day, but that's fine for most people. It's a very well designed backup program and can also do remote (free) and cloud (paid) backups. A strong contendor for anyone interested in a good backup program on Windows (it's also cross-platform, another plus, though I'll only list it here).

http://freefilesync.sourceforge.net/ (with versioning enabled) -- With versioning enabled this becomes the simplest replacement for someone who has been manually copying files to an external drive. While the versioning feature does leave things to be desired, the overall simplicity makes it useful in various situations.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/1838/using-backup-and-restore-in-windows-7/ -- not to be confused with NTBackup. This was introduced in Windows Vista. It significantly improved upon the weaknesses of NTBackup to produce a quality backup program. Home editions are limited to only backing up to local storage (another hard drive or DVDs), not to Windows shares.

Mac OS X:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427 -- Mac OS X's default backup software and possibly one of the best desktop backup programs out there.

Linux:

http://backintime.le-web.org/ -- a nice and simple backup program based on Time Machine

http://code.google.com/p/flyback/ -- another backup program based on Time Machine

Centralized Backup Systems

These are programs that run on a "server" and back up multiple PCs at once over the network. If you have multiple PCs to back up, this can be quite appealing.

http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/ -- A nice web-managed backup solution that's cross-platform. The documentation and online how-tos for it are pretty good and once set up (which admittedly takes some time) it's quite nice. It features de-duplication so if multiple computers have the same data, it shares that in order to save space.

http://www.bacula.org/en/ (with optional http://webacula.sourceforge.net/) -- An enterprise backup program with the ability to back up to tape. Webacula provides a very nice web interface to it. An annoyance is that even when backing up to disk it creates a vitual tape library instead of doing actual disk-to-disk backups. Still the raw power of it makes it a strong contender.

http://www.fogproject.org/ -- A cross-platform centralized system imageing backup program. It takes a lot of work to set up, but the end result is well worth it if you have a lot of computers. Also, it's very well documented how to roll it out.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/windows-home-server -- WHS includes a simple central backup solution for Windows houses. It can do system image backups too.

Remote and Cloud Backups

These backups are done over the Internet. Remote backups are done to places you know (such as a friend's or family member's computer) and cloud backups are stored on a third-party's server.

A common worry about cloud backup is the privacy concern. Even with the privacy concern, there's plenty you can back up online that's not private. I wouldn't personally back up online anything private, but I do use online storage for things like my school and work documents and plan on expanding my online backup to include more files in the near future. Also, remote backups are entirely in your control and there's always the already mentioned "Poor Man's Remote backup that doesn't use the Internet at all.

http://www.crashplan.com/: The simple remote backup solution. It's offered in the free application (though if you also use it as a desktop backup program, the same data you back up locally is backed up remotely. This limitation is removed in the Plus version). All your data is also encrypted, so you don't have to worry about your friend trying to see/steal your files. Just like with the local backup, it's simple to implement and well-documented. http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php/getting_started/back_up_to_a_friend. CrashPlan also offers cloud-based backups for CrashPlan+ members. Their pricing is also very competitive.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/essentials-other-programs: This is a file synchronization application that works over the Internet, but if you tell it to synchronize a local backup to a hard drive on another computer, then it'll effectively make your backup remote (just make sure your local backup you are synchronizing is encrypted).

SSH/SFTP, FTPS, and Windows Shares + VPN: Using any desktop backup program in combination with SSH/SFTP, FTPS, or a Windows Share on the other side of a VPN you have effectively done a remote backup. Mac OS X and Linux users are lucky to have SSHFS which makes backing up to a remote system dead-simple. Windows users aren't so lucky. I've found one free implementation of SSHFS that sounds promising for Windows, but I've not yet been able to properly test it. For those interested it is called http://www.eldos.com/sftp-net-drive/. There's also http://www.expandrive.com/, which is $40. Besides that, you can use SSL-protected FTP (FTPS). Most programs that work with FTP will also work with FTPS. Finally if you have a VPN set up, you can access network shares through the VPN creating a secure remote backup solution using windows shares. For information on how to set up a VPN, see the Data Privacy Day threads on the matter. NOTE: DO NOT USE FTP OR FORWARD WINDOWS SHARE PORTS TO THE INTERNET. NEITHER OF THESE ARE SECURE PROTOCOLS AND SHOULDN'T BE USED TO BACK UP DATA OUTSIDE YOUR LAN.

There's also plenty of other cloud services that offer some free storage like Dropbox, SugarSync, ADrive, Amazon Cloud Drive, etc that may suit your needs and offer more storage for a reasonable price (or free). At the very least they'll cover your needs for some documents.

Bare-metal restore

These are programs that can image your hard drive for you to restore from complete system failure. They are called Bare-metal restores because they can restore your data to an unused hard drive exactly like it was before. The biggest advantage of this is that they allow you to quickly get your PC up and running again after a full system failure.

Already mentioned Centralized Backup programs FOG and Windows Home Server's backup program can do bare-metal backup.

Windows 7 -- Windows 7 includes the ability to do a system image for bare-metal backups. As mentioned, though, home editions can only back up to local storage. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/.

http://clonezilla.org/ -- A very powerful system imaging tool. Don't let the command-line interface scare you off. It's very simple to use and very powerful.

http://redobackup.org/ -- a very user-friendly GUI to imaging your hard drive. If you are completely afraid of the command line, this is an alternative to CloneZilla.

Anyway, feel free to share your backup strategies and horror stories/why you finally got started backing up. I personally would have posted this sooner, but was seeding two brand new backup drives. Finally my entire system is backed up on a single drive (with another redundant drive) instead of the backup being across multiple drives.

yeah I was going to post that this morning but I figured you'd want to do it since you did it last year as well

It's a good post and I recommend you people viewing this thread read through it, even if it's rather long.

Too much work :/

Ill do it later...

I would've posted sooner, but work and my own backup got in the way

Well, relatively speaking, it's shorter than most of my threads, so that's gotta count for something I did try and keep things as brief as possible and not all sections are applicable to everyone.

And this is exactly why World Backup Day was started. There's really not much work to put into doing a backup. It's only a lot of work if you don't automate it. Download Crashplan (and get Crashplan+ if you want cloud backups) and set it up to back up to an external drive (or to the cloud if you got Crashplan+). CrashPlan+ and FreeFileSync are probably the easiest to set up, followed closely by Cobian Backup.

Most people, myself included, who know the importance of backing up learned the hard way. As in we lost files due to not having a proper backup. Don't make our mistakes and get into doing backups now. Back up now, before it's too late.

I could really care less about losing data though. Like it would svck, but honestly I don't even touch 97% of the stuff on my laptop anyway. Besides most of the stuff can be downloaded again anyway. iTunes stores all purchases in the Cloud, as does Amazon. Steam lets you redownload stuff. I think it stores save games in the cloud too, if not no biggie.

So what am I really losing? If anything it'd be refreshing to have a fresh wipe rather than hundreds of gb's of stuff I don't even use.

Family photos (and other precious digitized memories), financial documents, passwords, home videos, etc. Also, in the future, only more of your life will be stored on your computer so it's better to get into the habit now rather than be burned later.

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw

Everyone has something they'd rather not lose on their computers. And the smaller it is that you don't want to lose, the easier it is to back up so the less reason to not get started

I disagree. In the future, more of my life will be automatically stored in the cloud. Hard drives will be a thing of the past.

Edit: Besides every photo I take is automatically uploaded to Facebook, Flickr and Instagram so I'm covered on pictures. Passwords are stored in my mind.

Backing up just isn't for me, and pretty soon it won't even be needed because everything we do will be stored online already (which I would hope would be backed up by the companies). Even my Xbox saves are stored in the cloud.

The cloud can and has failed. It's hardly a 100% dependable thing. In the industry there is a phrase "Cloud is SLA without the SLA" In reference to cloud services don't have an agreed uptime or availability (which is why cloud services are so cheap).

And if you want to store your personal information in the cloud, that's your choice. I personally never will.

This is to say nothing of the efficiency and ease of local backups. Undoubtedly your download speed is significantly slower than your disk write speed. As such backing up local saves you a lot of time and headache compared with the task of redownloading your entire music, video, and game collection. Of just the stuff I've downloaded, it'd take me a couple of weeks of straight downloading before I had successfully redownloaded everything I have downloaded in the past, and that's assuming I could download it in one lump package at my max download speed, which I know isn't the case and portions of it I probably couldn't find even if I tried.

The tedious nature of tracking down and redownloading a huge music collection from Amazon and the like is enough to make it worth backing up. You'd have to spend days not weeks in front of a computer clicking through downloads to redownload your entire collection.

Can't you just come to my house and do it for me?

Why store one of your backups in a different location? Seems silly. If you need it you'd have to drive somewhere to get it. Why not just keep both of them where they'd be needed? You could still easily do the "swap" at the end of the month.

I, of course don't backup. I don't care enough and I more than likely won't start. But, tge only thing on my PC are games.

The best way to address both why you should store one off-site and why you should back up is this:

Your house burns down, floods, or something like that. Now your backup at home is dead along with your computer. If you have an off-site backup then you can get everything back.


"But if my house was destroyed, I'd have bigger concerns than my data" -- True. But being the smart person that you are, you made digital copies of all your important files -- financial records, insurance information, birth certificates, etc. These were kept in your encrypted off-site backup. Now getting your life back to normal became immensely easier as you have all your important documents once again.

Off-site backups are an insurance policy in more than one way.

Fire, theft, flooding; anything that could have site-wide impact on your stuff.

I've been quite disconcerted to see this sort of thing on the decline over the past 20 years: daily backups and copies being shipped off-site were standard practice in data centres when I started out in about 1990 but it seems that you're lucky to get weekly backups in some places these days.

Just made my monthly system images.

I have nothing important on my PC so I don't backup and I don't see a reason to.

Here's a reason for you to: The time it takes me to restore my PC if it were to get a virus or if the hard drive corrupts is 20 or so minutes. How many hours or days would you be sitting in front of your PC reinstalling your OS, installing all the updates, installing all your applications, reconfiguring all your applications to the proper settings, and logging back in to all your accounts?

Backing up isn't just to save stuff, but to save time and yourself from headaches.

Not to mention if you're either a student, have a family, or have a white-collar job, it's hard to not have anything you need to keep. A good example I listed up earlier of digital copies of your important identifying and financial records for if anything happens to the original. If you think reinstalling everything is even slightly painful, imagine having to put together your entire life again after a fire burns up all your documents.

It would take me a day or two (and +4 days if I want to redownload all my games that I have installed now). I wouldn't be happy spending days redownload and installing but on the bright side at least then I have a reason to update all my programs. I don't keep any digital copies of important documents on this PC.

So if you know you're looking at basically a week to go from crash to where you are now, why wouldn't you save yourself from that pain when it's so simple to do? I mean, Windows can do it for you, you just need an external drive

BTW: to solve your updating programs problem you can use http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/ or http://ninite.com/ to basically do for your programs what Windows Update does for Windows.

You should. Well, not necessarily on that PC, but in general it's a very good idea to keep digital copies of your important documents. The advantage of digital files is it's so easy to secure and back them up. You could have a backup in a family member's house for if anything happens to yours. That way you don't have to deal with as much buracracy when putting your life back together if your house burns down or floods (I'm assuming you store your important documents in your house in a cabinet or something). Heck, you could even keep an encrypted copy of your important documents on a microSD in your wallet (just make sure to protect the microSD in a thick stock card of some kind so you don't snap it sitting down )

Well, where I live copies of birth certificates and SS cards aren't valid forms of Id. Your birth certificate "must" have the raised seal or it's not "official".

Besides. I keep all that stuff in a safe. That's fire proof. Having an off-site copy of you backup does you little good if your house burned down anyway. Your computer melted so, you'll have to waste time, money and energy to get/build a new one. If my house burned down worry about getting my backup and computer up and running would be at the bottom of the list.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good idea to have a backup. Not that I'm gonna ever do it. But I honestly don't think all of the super-secret-secret-squirrel stuff is necessary. Ok, you might get robbed. Yeah, and I might be hit by a truck too. Yup, it could happen. So, what's to say where your backup is burns to the ground or gets robbed? In the case of burning down or a flood; no big deal since you still have the original. But, ifit gets robbed well, youre [censored]ed anyway, the thief has your backup. Which brings me right back to my, 'seems silly to me' comment.

Again, don't take what I'm saying to heart. My father used to back his stuff up, first on tapes, then on 5 1/4 disks then on 3 1/2 disks, then on cds, then on ZiP drives. After he passed away we found thousands upon thousands of backed up stuff he never ever needed. Seemed pointless to me then, still seems pointless now. There's 1001 things that I feel are more important to worry about than backing up what little info I have and driving an hour to my brother's house to 'hide' it from would-be robbers or a fire, or a flood. A lot of stuff can happen. But I'm not going to concern muself about tje what-ifs and "backing" up of info that if someone really wants, they'll get.

It gets things moving a lot faster even if it's not accepted as valid ID. You can get new versions a lot faster if you have a copy, at least that's been my experience (for starters you "know" the ID even if you're like me and don't have it memorized).

This is to say nothing of other important documents such as tax forms (what? got audited after my house burns down? Yeah, life svcks, good thing I have a backup). Major expenses (what? My insurance wants records of the items in my house? good thing I have digital copies of my reciepts!), medical information, education information, and other stuff.


Erm, you can use a backup on any PC, it's not tied to a specific PC... You just plug it into your family/friend's PC and get the information there, obviously. How fireproof is your safe? Is it actually rated as fireproof and in good standing? It's amazing how many "fireproof" safes can only withstand a lit stove fire, but not a burning house.

It's not super-secret-squirrel stuff. Off-site backups are a standard in the industry because anyone who knows beans about backups realizes how important they are.

Here's a major difference between your fire safe and a backup: You can test a backup to see if it works. Are you going to light your house on fire to see if your firesafe works or flood it to see if your waterproof safe works? Not to mention firesafes and waterproof safes can fail and have an upper limit on effectiveness before the fail to the water or heat.

Also the thief has an encrypted backup. Did you read what I said in the OP? As soon as it leaves the ground you encrypt it (ideally you encrypt all backups, but off-site backups are definitely encrypted). The thief has effectively a paperweight (or a hard drive if he wipes it clean and it's not hardware-based encryption)


Most people have places they go to regularly such as work or a friends house where they can store it and pick it up on their normal routine. If someone doesn't have such a place, there's the remote options.


If you give your backup a moment's thought it doesn't cause you to go out of your way to do it and it's mostly or entirely automated so you don't have to worry about it, so you can go on worrying about those "1001" other things all the time. That's the advantage of a backup: Once you've set it up it does it by itself (ideally you test a backup now and then). The fact that you have these 1001 other things more important is proof of how much you need a backup. If you hard drive went kablooie today, would you really want to have to spend the next few days reinstalling windows, reinstalling windows updates, reinstalling all your applications, reconfiguring all your application, and redownloading all your music, videos, and games? No, not if you have 1001 things to do. Backups make it so if something bad happens you're back up on your feet in minutes instead of days. I personally value my time in gold, so I'd have backups for that reason alone.

You're acting like it's this big hassle to back up and you have to concern yourself about it, but the whole purpose of World Backup Day is to tell you the opposite: you can set them up simply and they don't impact you at all while providing you with security, insurance, time, and a headache-free future.


I don't understand why people see backups as this hard, impossible to do thing or otherwise an nuisance that isn't worth dealing with. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, in the time it takesto write up your posts about how you think backups are silly or you don't need one, you could have implemented a backup and been done with it.

I agree with you...especially since Windows BackUp comes with Windows7 and just requires clicking a couple buttons before going to bed or something. But you have to remember that for some people, even defragging the hard drive a few times a year is too much work - or alternatively, too much downtime.

Outside of my more serious photography, I don't have enough important digital stuff for me to feel like I need to do the off-site copy (I'm actually still more of a paper person for those things...), but I do the Windows Backup of the O/S disk and individual file backups of things I like to access directly (videos/music etc) from my internal 2nd non-OS drive on 2 different external drives. Only twice a month tho, unless I'm doing something that creates an extra backup need....my hard drive contents doesn't change that often.

It's good to make people aware of the potential need for backing up, but you do have to consider/realize a lot of people, even in this day and age, still aren't putting a ton of vital things (ie absolutely can't live without) on their home PC hard drives. My marriage and birth certificate are still paper (w/multiple copies) for example. *shrug*

Eh, I'd rather just have a clean install.

I manually backup my music, pictures, browser, and a select few program settings. It's not automatic so if something does go wrong I'll lose something but just a couple bookmarks, albums, whatever new changes I've made in Lightroom, and my current foobar settings. Not a huge deal to me.

I don't like the idea of automated backups. Programs going near my data scares me. Maybe, maybe, I'll try FreeFileSync one of these days because having to completely backup over 300 GB of music every time would be a pain.

And note: I have lost stuff once before. Mainly because I was backing up before I did a clean install of Windows and I forgot about that one little folder I almost never used.

I do need to get one of them fireproof HDD safes.

Uhhh... what?

And of course you don't need to back up EVERYTHING, thats one of the great things about having a back up in the first place, you can easily do a full format and not lose any important data, while clearing out all the junk.

I suppose I should have said "autobackup and syncing programs doing near my data scares me". I know I'll do it right when I backup but I can't say the same for them.

Yeah, that is nice to have sometimes. Though usually I just use the first image of a computer I make. Same thing as a clean install except it skips the actual setup and installation of a few updates and my absolute bare essential programs.

Well, the way any backup program should work is it has versioning and so keeps the old version before copying a new version. Obviously, though that demands more hard drive space (depending on how big the files that are changing are and how often they change), but it means that if the backup fouls up in any way, you still have your data.

Still, even manual backups puts you lightyears ahead of most people. Only problem with manual backups is most people can't follow through with them regularly. If you can, then they are good. Automation isn't necessary, just a very good idea for most (especially for those too lazy to even start backing up).

Yeah, lost some stuff similar ways. Too hard to keep track of stuff sometimes

If nothing else, that's a reason to use FreeFileSync to manually do the backups. FreeFileSync keeps the list for you, so if you ever find something else you need to back up just add it to the list. In fact, FreeFileSync by itself can't be automatic. There's a separate part of the program called RealTimeSync that's the automatic part.


Those things are cooooool, though I have doubts about how effective the cheaper, easier to obtain ones actually are...