Backing up files - advice needed please

Hello TheOne,

I think the simplest method for you might be an external back-up drive that you just plug into a USB port on you laptop and the drive's own software does everything automatically. The drive you choose should be at least the same size as the drive(s) you want to back up. The first time you use it, it will ask you to choose which drive(s) you want to backup, and which folders or files. Your first back up may take several minutes depending how much data is involved. Thereafter most people choose to only back up files which have been changed or added to. That way you do not fill up the backup drive and you don't need to delete the previous backups. I hope this is making sense! I have 2 x 4TB drives in my laptop and it takes just 3 minutes to back up both of them.

Other alternatives might be a Flash Drive, or backing up to the Cloud.

Have you any idea how much data you need to backup? I may be able to recommend an easy to use drive.

The downside of an external hard drive is that they can fail, as I found to my cost when teaching.
We had limited memory in our school accounts, so I would back up folders on an external hard drive. Unfortunately over the years, two failed and the data couldn't be retrieved, despite me being pretty IT literate.

In the end, I had two drives on the go, in case one failed! Now I use the Cloud.

Yes, you are quite right Marydoll, no method is totally infallible. Not even the Cloud.

My friend's husband regularly backed up everything to the Cloud, years & years of business accounts, tax returns, receipts, documents and 1000s of photos. One day his computer burst into flames and just melted before his eyes! A repair shop couldn't get anything off the hard drive so he bought a new machine, confident that he could retrieve his data from the Cloud. To his horror there was NOTHING there! Absolutely nothing!! Even though he knew it had been saved because he had viewed it. Everything was gone, somehow. The worst loss were the photos, and the Tax man wasn't happy either. Apparently it is not uncommon. So personally I avoid the Cloud, but the OP might be more daring.

Theone hi, if you Google ‘beginners guide to backing up my laptop’, you should find some step by step guides, including YouTube examples. These really do take you through every stage step by step, those of us on here who do it, do so without thinking and explaining it online is tricky for a new user to understand. I tried it over the phone to a friend ‘what cloud’ was his response, perfectly understandable.
I hope this helps x

A Cloud type storage system is the best choice, ranging from free for limited capacity to paid for. We pay around £50 per year. It backs up all changes that day, every day at midnight.
Our hard drive crashed last year and we used the cloud storage to re-populate. We lost nothing.

Nothing is infallible, I am afraid. Probably better to keep photos in a biscuit tin, even then, they will disintegrate with age!

Sorry, I'm not being very helpful. I did manage to retrieve some data from the first drive, by buying a new caddy, which didn't quite fit. It was held together by sellotape, but that solution didn't last very long!

Thank you all so much for the pointers you have given. I'm sorry to be late in responding but I've not been well overnight but this gives me plenty to think about. I will have a look at hard drives as a starter but am feeling I may use both just in case! Back later.

I save documents to OneDrive and photos to Google Photos - easily keeping within their free storage allowance - works for me. (I must delete my old lesson plans etc. now that I'm retired.)

I would say use both. It’s advice I give my students - back up your work in multiple ways. One advantage of backing up on external hard drive is that if you then delete from your computer you still have the photos. If they are backed up to the cloud and you delete them they disappear from the cloud as well. My external hard drive has a large memory so I haven’t bothered to remove earlier back ups.

Hello, I'm back in (somewhat limited) action and I want to thank each and every one of you who have posted. But my goodness, what a minefield!
I have watched a good video as suggested and get the gist of the "how to" back up using an external hard drive and need to decide which to buy and what size. Someone asked how much data I have but I don't have a clue - sorry but I'm completely new to all this.

What I have found on this laptop today (my husband has obviously set all this up in the past but is unable to help in the foreseeable future) is that we have Amazon Prime Photos with unlimited storage. This is apparently included with our £79 annual Prime subscription. Also he pays £1.49 to Amazon for extra video storage as we have hundreds of our grandchildren.

There is Microsoft One Drive too with lots of stuff in there. I know there are thousands of photos and many, many duplicates in different locations by the looks of things. It's it just a case of trawling through and deleting the duplicates? They are stored all over the place as far as I can make out.

Should I remove One Drive and just rely on Amazon Photos? I don't think One Drive offers unlimited storage but I could be wrong. Jane71 can I ask which cloud storage you pay £50 a year for please?

I will definitely order a hard drive as a safety net later today when I've tried to find the best.
I think I could do with hiring a professional to sort it all out for me as I'm feeling very despondent about the mess and worried I could lose all these previous memories unless I act now.

Thanks for reading my ramblings of you have!

Marydoll

The downside of an external hard drive is that they can fail, as I found to my cost when teaching.
We had limited memory in our school accounts, so I would back up folders on an external hard drive. Unfortunately over the years, two failed and the data couldn't be retrieved, despite me being pretty IT literate.

In the end, I had two drives on the go, in case one failed! Now I use the Cloud.

Me too Marydoll, except something from the school system corrupted my hard drive. All my teaching career was on it!

Gagajo, we had to share the server with two other primaries and the high school. Of course, the server was located in the high school and they had complete control over it!
Primary schools were not allowed to purchase their own server in our LA.
It made life very difficult at times!

Well done Theone you’ve made a start ??

Thanks for the encouragement Jaxjacky - much needed and much appreciated ? I'll get there!