Questions about Backups

Aleksbgbg · March 5, 2016

In my life I think I've had 4 desktop PCs, of which I have never backed up a single time or had them run out of their lifespan at all.

I currently have 3 hard drives:

- 850 EVO 250GB SSD (3.25 months old - wow time goes fast)

- Toshiba DT01ACA100 1TB HDD 7200RPM (2.5 years+ old)

- Samsung/Seagate Spinpoint ST2000LM003 2TB HDD 5400RPM (1 year old, just about)

So the DT01ACA100 is quite old now, it's a great hard drive and cheap at that but since I now understand a lot more about computers than I did during the lifespan of my other PCs, I gather that my HDD may one day - be it today, tomorrow or in 5 years' time - fail me. Now I've definitely had a lot of luck with hard drives, having none of mine fail me but I have 500GB worth of games on that hard drive and a few more programs with vital settings on them.

So I think I will back it up a few times per month (since not a lot changes on that HDD) to my 2TB slow (as I like to call it) HDD.

However, I have always seen backups as a silly thing to do for a few reasons, which I need answered before I can actually do a backup, so here are my questions:

1. If I backup a HDD to another HDD, doesn't it take an equivalent amount of space, therefore wasting space? Or are backups files that rebuild themselves from a set of instructions?

2. What is better - windows integrated backup services and programes, etc. OR some third-party (if that's what you call it) software that makes a backup - if so, then suggestions?

3. Do backups save everything as it is, and if restored will everything be as it was 100% during the time of backup?

4. If let's say my 2nd HDD fails and I have a backup of it, then can I buy a new HDD and return everything AS IT WAS to this new HDD, or will it be on the drive that stores the backup?

Thanks

NoobCase · March 5, 2016

Aomei backup is a great free backup tool.

1 deponering on what type of backup you do. Most backup will however only take up a fraction of the space of what you are backing up. Can depent on the data type if i really correctly. And yes the backup data is a Sort of instructions used by the back up tool to recreate data in most case.

2 look at statement in the begroning... clonezilla is a popular Linux tool if you are into that sort of thing and also free.

3 yes unless you encounter bit rot.

4 you make little sense there... You back up will be stored where ever you choose. But yes you can buy a new HDD and resterende the data back as it was. But you will restore it from the back up.