External Hard Drive Backup In Windows

 

For most people, external hard drives are familiar enough devices that they hardly ever give any thought to backing up data. Many of the better external hard drives on the market have an air of invulnerability about them after all, and this has caused some people to take a more cavalier approach towards preserving their data.

 

Of course external hard drives are just as prone to failure as desktop drives, and perhaps even more so. Data backup is absolutely essential if you are to make it out of a hard drive crash relatively unscathed. With that in mind, here are a few backup solutions for the Windows platform, one of which actually comes with the operating system.

 

Windows XP actually comes with its own handy backup system, which although quite rudimentary can get the job done satisfactorily enough. In fact, the Windows XP backup system is so easy to use, that it practically does all the work for you. What’s more, the entire process only takes as little as 10 minutes a week. Sure there are other more full featured 3^rd party backup solutions out there, but for a quick and easy solution for basic backup tasks, the Windows XP utility does fine.

 

If you are currently running Windows XP Professional, the backup utility should already be installed. If you are using the Home Edition however, you will have to install the software from the Windows XP install CD. Once you have the Windows XP backup software running, you will get to choose which particular files you wish to backup. You will be given the choice to backup single drives or folders, and you can even specify a time and date for when you want the backup to take place.

 

Windows 7 goes a step further than this and allows you to backup your data to another drive, the network you are connected to, or a DVD. All versions of Windows currently allow backup to an external hard drive. If you wish to backup your data to your central server, or to a network attached storage device, this functionality is included only in Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate.

 

One feasible 3rd party alternative to the Windows backup utility is Cobian. This software is offered free for personal use, and it is a pretty flexible backup solution that allows you to perform local as well as remote backups. Cobian is also updated pretty regularly by the developer, so new features are constantly being added. Some of the program’s current features are a range of backup profiles, file compression features, and data encryption.

 

Cucku Backup is another worthy contender in the backup software arena, and it allows you to backup all your data completely and continuously. In order to ensure the utmost safety and security of your data, advanced encryption algorithms are used which prevent any unauthorized 3^rd parties from reading your filenames or seeing the contents of your files.