Backing up data isn't exciting, but it's important. Unfortunately, many of us only realise how crucial it is when something goes catastrophically wrong. There's nothing quite like a failed hard drive or ransomware infection to sharpen the mind, and lead to a resolution to do things a little differently in the future. But where do you start with backing up data? It needn't be completed – you can create a manual backup by simply copying your important files to a spare hard drive, but it makes far more sense to turn to dedicated backup software to automate the process.

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A good backup program will let you choose exactly which data should be stored, how often, where, and whether it should be encrypted for extra security. You should also look out for a backup tool that makes recovering your data easy after a disaster. With that in mind, we've put the top free backup tools through their paces and picked the very best options. Automatic 'smart' backups has lots of bases covered: backing up individual files and folders, whole drives or partitions, or creating a full system backup. There's also a 'smart' option that automatically backs up files in commonly used locations, and you have the option of using cloud storage.

Backups can then be scheduled, running as incremental, differential or full backups as required (see below for a full explanation of the differences). The free version of EaseUS Todo Backup free has almost all the features of the premium edition. You can still run backups on a schedule, but lose the ability to have these backups triggered by various events – not something most people will miss.

The same goes for command line-driven backups, PC-to-PC data transfer, and Outlook backup; they're all nice to have, but their absence is unlikely to be a deal-breaker. A few features are exclusive the the premium version, but EasusUS Todo Backup Free is more than enough for just about everyone out there. You'll be offered a free download of the Chromium browser and a Bing search plugin during installation. If you'd rather skip these, uncheck both boxes before clicking 'Next' • • 3.

No wizard for beginners is the most advanced free backup tool around, and might be overkill for new users, but if you know exactly how you want to configure your backups then you can be confident it'll give you the flexibility you need. Cobian Backup can be used to create and schedule multiple backup jobs, and files can be archived to another local hard drive, network location or, if you have access to one, an FTP server. It can back up to multiple locations at the same time, so it's possible to run multiple backup jobs simultaneously. Backups can be compressed to save space, and there's optional encryption to keep your data secure. Cobian Backup loses when it comes time to restore data – there's no simple wizard to automate the process, so you're left on your own having to copy files back into place, decrypting and decompressing first if necessary. Still, for backing up your most valuable data, this is one of the most comprehensive tools out there. Advanced data recovery does an excellent job of making the process of backing up as simple as possible, holding your hand with a wizard-driven interface.

You can opt to back up your entire computer, partitions, select files and folders based on location, or files based on their type. Once that's done, just set a schedule and choose the type of backup you want to want to create and then leave the software to take care of things by itself. That's not all – as the latter portion of its name suggests, this isn't just a backup tool.

Paragon Backup & Recovery is a whole data management toolkit, and also includes an impressive CD or USB-based recovery system that can be used to get your data back even if you're not able to boot into Windows. It's all very impressive. Once you've signed up for a free account, this free backup software is a thing of beauty. No incremental backups has a slightly unappealing (and Office-inspired) interface, but don’t let that put you off. Beneath the ugly exterior is a capable backup utility, although it isn't as feature backed as tools like Paragon Backup & Recovery. FBackup offers a choice of wizard and advanced modes. Whichever you choose, it's easy to create backup jobs comprising files and folders, which can be saved to local or network drives, removable disks, or Google Drive.

Scheduling is available to keep your backups up to date. There are in-program ads suggesting you upgrade to the paid-for, but thankfully they are relatively unobtrusive so hopefully you'll be able to ignore them if you're not interested. The free version of the program lacks a few features, but these might be inconsequential, depending on your needs. If you can live without encryption, FTP backups, email notifications and incremental backups, Fbackup is well worth checking out.

Limited customization options isn't a traditional backup tool by any means, it is cloud-based and just what you are able to back up will depend on how much online Google storage you have available. You're given a limited amount of space for free, and there are various ways to boost it without having to part with any money, but in reality Google Backup and Sync is going to be useful for backing up individual directories – not your whole system.

• For backing up key files and folders, however, it's superb. You can easily specify any number of folders for the software to monitor, and any changes, additions or deletions are implemented near-instantaneously. As the name suggests, the software can be used to synchronize files between computers, and they are accessible through on any device via the Google Drive web app. An excellent, if slightly limited, backup tool. • Understanding backup types When you're choosing backup software it's worth understanding the different types of backups. An image is an exact copy of an entire drive or partition, including all installed programs and system files.

If you need to reinstall Windows, you can boot from the image file and avoid having to reinstall all your programs and reconfigure your Windows settings. Foundry Nuke Software Free Download With Crack. Note that you can't use an image to restore your system on a different PC. Images are very large and take a long time to create, so you won't want to make one every day.

For everyday backups, you'll only want to copy the most important data on your PC – your documents, photos and music, for example. There are several types of regular backup: • Full backup: a copy of all selected data. • Differential backup: a copy of the data that has changed or been added since the last full backup.

• Incremental backup: a copy of the data that has changed since the last backup, whether that was full backup or incremental. Each differential backup will be larger than the last, but to restore your system you'll only need the full backup and the latest differential one. Incremental backup files are smaller, but to restore your system you'll need your full backup as well as all subsequent incremental ones, which takes longer.

Michael Muchmore The Best Backup Software of 2018 Nobody likes taking the time to back up a PC's document, media, and system files, but doing so can save you a world of hurt. These programs can help you protect your data.

Why Back Up Your PC? In August of 2016, Delta Airlines had to more than 1,300 flights, at a cost of $100 million, not because of weather or mechanical problems, but because the company's computer systems went down. If it can happen to a big corporation like Delta, don't think it can't happen to you. All technology, whether it's a brand new iMac, a spaceship, a hover board, a webmail service, or a ten-year-old PC running Windows Vista, can potentially take a sudden nosedive. Hard drives are notorious for crashing, and can make a computer's contents inaccessible. Sometimes it's not even the fault of the technology: Fires, flooding, and other natural disasters can render PCs and other tech hardware inoperable. And laptops get stolen.

You need insurance. With digital content becoming paramount for not only business assets—documents, plans, financial spreadsheets—but also for personal assets such as family photos, videos, and music, protecting with backup software is more important than ever. Both Windows and Mac OS X have beefed up their built-in backup tools in recent years. Includes a File History feature and a full disk backup feature, and OS X includes its Time Machine software. Both of these are well worth running, but they both have some limitations, lacking some of the extra benefits you get from running standalone backup software.

How Backup Software Works The concept behind backup software is pretty simple: Make a copy of your files on storage separate from your main hard drive. That storage can be another drive, an external drive, a NAS, a rewritable disc, or an. Should you lose the files, either through disaster or simply by deleting them or overwriting them, you can just restore them from the saved copies.

But in order for this to work, the copies of your files must be updated regularly. Most backup software lets you schedule scans of your for new and changed files daily, weekly, or monthly, but my preferred option is to have the software continually (or at least, say, every 15 minutes) monitor your drive for changed or new files. Several products here offer this continuous backup option.

More granular options include whether backups are full, incremental, or differential. The first is pretty obvious—all the data you've selected for backup is copied in its entirety. Incremental backup saves system resources by only backing up changes in files from the last incremental backup, and differential backup saves all changes from the last full backup. With incremental, you need the latest full backup and all the intermediary backup data to restore a file to its original state, whereas with differential, you just need the last set of differential backup data and the first full one. A couple of security options are usually available when setting up your backup: and encryption. Using both of these is a good idea if the data you're backing up is at all sensitive. Another option offered by many backup applications is versioning.

This lets you specify how many previous versions of your files you want to preserve, and for how long. I recommend maxing this out, especially when you're storing backups locally, with no annual fee for hosted online backup.

In any case, the incremental changes don't eat up a ton of space. A step further than the simple copying of files is copying the entire hard drive, including system files, as what's called a disk image. This contains every bit of data on the drive and offers stronger protection, since it enables you to recreate a system after a hard drive failure. Some products can even update a disk image nearly continuously. But that extra protection comes at the price of more complexity in setting up and restoring.

Usually you'll need to run a pre-boot environment from startup media to restore a system image, since doing so from within your main OS isn't possible. For another—highly recommended—approach to backup, consider, also known as cloud backup. Services like Carbonite and Mozy securely send your data over the internet and save it on remote file servers in encrypted form. The big plus of this option is that the data is off your premises, and therefore not susceptible to local disasters.

The downside is that they tie you to annual fees, and uploading and downloading backups is slower than loading local copies. Some online backup services, such as IDrive and SOS Online Backup, include software for making local backups, too. Restoring From Backup How you set up your backup affects how you can restore it. If you've backed up your entire disk image, you'll need to start the system from bootable media such as a DVD or USB stick that you create in the software. (You should definitely create one of these types of rescue media if your software offers it.) You also may need to attach another external drive containing the backup data along with the boot media. Several of the programs included here even let you restore data from one PC to another that has different hardware.

This is useful when you simply want to migrate to new PC hardware, as opposed to recovering from a disaster. For restoring individual files, several of the applications, such as Acronis True Image and Paragon Backup & Recovery, give you the option of choosing among previous versions of the files you've saved. Which file versions are available to restore depends on how frequently you've run backups. This is why the continuous backup option mentioned above is preferable. With that option, ideally, every time you save a file, it's backed up and you can get back to any previous point in time.

If all or some of this has sounded like a foreign language to you, you should definitely check out PCMag's, which offers help and detailed information on the different kinds of backup available to you. The article makes recommendations on what you should back up and what media you should back it up to. Below are links to our latest local backup software reviews. Have you got a story about an occasion when backup software saved your bacon or an opinion about one of the applications we've reviewed here? Let us know in the comments below.