Fair Backup

No, really, can you buy only one license of some backup software to backup every piece of data you have at home? Read on how.

First of all, you’ll need to connect your computers in a local area network (LAN). Then you need to share the files on each computer

(To make the data on one network computer accessible from other computers, right-click on the Drive:C item in the “My Computer” list on the computer you want to share, select “Sharing and security..”, click on “Yes, I understand the risks, blah blah blah”, then do so again and again until you see a radio button with “Share this folder” - check this radio button to share the entire Drive C: within your network.)

Do this on every network computer except on the one you will install your backup software.

Install your backup software if you haven’t already done so.

Get an external hard disk drive you will backup your data to. Why HDD? It is the best backup medium.

Launch the backup program you have got and begin selecting files you have on your computers you want to backup. Do this methodically, starting from one computer, checking folders, etc.

You may want to backup the C:\Documents and Settings\

After you have done selecting the files on all your home computers, select the place you want them to be backed up to. That'd be an external hard drive.

Most likely, you'd want to compress the files for them to occupy less space. Plain text files can be compressed by up to 95% but images by 5%, so consider which type of files you backup when you decide to compress your files. If you backup files with text, use compression, if you backup graphics (or compressed audio or video), don't use compression (you'll be able to use those files from the external HDD as well, as a bonus.

If you are going to store your external hard disk drive somewhere offsite (a good decision in case your house burns, gets robbed or flooded, etc), you may want to encrypt your files.
Basically, now every backup software offers backup encryption and almost every encryption algorithm is more or less enough to secure your files. Just make sure to remember your password.

If you want to run the backup sometime you can leave your computers on and need to walk away, you can schedule your backup to run without you.

Alright, either with those options used or not, you can launch your backup now and may the Power be with you

Thank you for reading