Backup the smart way. Choosing the right information backup program. Incremental backup. System backup

Greetings to all blog readers! :) In one of the articles where I talked about ways to protect your computer from various threats, I also touched on simple measures security that is recommended for every PC user to always have a stable operating system and not lose important data. Data safety and ability to quickly recover Windows performance(or whatever system you are working on) - this is very important for each of us.

For example, you make money on axleboxes, you already have the necessary programs, everything is configured for your convenience, and suddenly your system crashes and refuses to boot no matter how hard you try. Those. simple ways to bring the system back to life do not work. The system could “die” for a number of reasons: infection with viruses, installation of “crooked” drivers and programs, failure of some computer component, and much more.

In this case, the solution for most is to reinstall operating system, then installing all new programs again, setting everything up for the convenience of your work and a number of other actions to make everything as convenient for you before. And all this can take up, if not the whole day, then definitely half a day :) And it’s good if you have some experience and can copy important data to return it later. But imagine if you can’t do this or they are damaged and part of them is deleted, for example, if the hard drive is damaged? This can become a very big problem.

Knowing all of the above and what I had to deal with many times, I decided to write a couple or more articles about how you can conveniently make a copy of all the files you need from your computer, as well as create an entire copy of your system with all the programs already installed and the necessary settings .

For this purpose it is possible to use both built-in using Windows, and third-party. Data backup tools in Windows itself are extremely inconvenient, slow and lack large quantity convenient, useful functions. Therefore, I recommend using third-party tools for this purpose, for example, the program - Acronis True Image. The program is paid and the cost is simple home version for one computer per this moment– 1700 rubles.

But, as is the case with antiviruses (for example, Kaspersky) and others paid programs As a rule, it is always possible to download an already activated full copy from the Internet and use it for free :) The program is very, very useful and sometimes simply necessary.

Now I will tell you how to create a full system backup, going through each step of the settings and explaining each function.

Let's start by installing the program.

Installing a data backup / recovery program - Acronis True Image

The installation process, as well as the interface of the program itself, of course, may differ with the release of new versions, but the essence of the program and its functions remain unchanged. Therefore, having learned to do backup and recovery with this manual you can do this at any time new version Acronis.

You can purchase the program from the official website at the price indicated there, or download the activated full latest version right here:

Acronis True Image Home 2014 PREMIUM.zip
ZIP archive
216 MB
Download

The downloaded archive “Acronis True Image Home 2014 PREMIUM.zip” must be unpacked before starting the installation from the file inside. To do this, click right click mouse over the archive and select “Extract all...”:

A window will open in which by clicking the “Browse” button you can select the path to unpack the archive. By default it will be unpacked into the same folder where it is currently located. I recommend checking the box “Show extracted files” and then after unpacking the folder with the unpacked contents will immediately open. To start unpacking, click the “Extract” button:

After unpacking we launch installation file. For this version it has the name: “ATIH.2014.PREMIUM.v17.0.0.5560.exe”:

The first installer window will appear, in which you just need to agree to continue the installation by clicking the “Yes” button:

After unpacking, the first window of the Acronis True Image installer will appear, in which we simply click the “Next” button, since there is nothing you need to do here:

We accept license agreement in the next window, select “I agree to the terms of the agreement” and click the “Next” button:

In the next window we are asked to select the installation type. I recommend always choosing “Custom” when installing any programs in order to remove completely unnecessary components:

A new window will open where we see the components that will be installed. In this case, nothing unnecessary will be installed, and therefore we leave everything as it is and click “Next”:

In the next window, select “Install for all users” and click “Next”. This parameter I also recommend choosing when installing any software, and if only you or your loved ones work at this computer:

All that remains is to click the “Proceed” button and the process of installing the program on your computer will begin with the parameters we have chosen:

After the installation process is completed, which does not require your intervention (takes about 2-3 minutes), the last window will appear, in which we click the “Close” button:

This completes the Acronis True Image installation process. Now let’s look at how to make a complete backup copy of the system: the operating system and all the programs installed on it, so that if the system “crash”, you can very easily return it to the same state, with the same programs and settings.

Creating a complete copy of the system with all data for further rapid restoration to its original state

First of all, you need to take care of where your backups will be stored, which you will now, I think, regularly create for your own convenience and safety.

If you have 2 on your computer individual hard disk, then you can store backups on one of these disks. The main thing is that there is enough space, because a backup copy of the entire system without compression will take up exactly the same volume as the system itself, along with the files, actually occupies in your space. For example, if the volume of everything stored on your computer takes up 200 GB, then a backup copy without compression will take up approximately the same volume. Acronis allows you to compress your backup, which I always use, and with maximum compression, the volume is often reduced by as much as 2 times. Therefore, based on the explanations above, you can already estimate how much space you need to store a full copy of your computer.

I create backups to an external HDD, which I connect to the laptop via USB. This is very convenient if the space on this hard drive allows. And after copies are created on my external HDD(hard drive), I sometimes transfer them to cloud services (online storage), for example, to Mail.ru, where 100 GB of free space is given for free.

About remote storages I have written a number of separate articles and I recommend, first of all, that you read the very first one:

It's up to you to decide :) The main thing is not to store backup copies of your data on the same hard drive from which you make these copies. This makes no sense, because if this HDD is damaged, you will lose all the data along with the copy, since they were stored on one disk. I hope everything is clear here :)

So, let's start creating a backup copy of your system, including everything that is in it:

Launches Acronis program True Image from a desktop shortcut or from the Start menu.

After the program starts, go to the “Backup and Restore” tab. To create a backup copy of the entire system along with all programs and settings, click on open tab“Back up disks and partitions” button:

A new window will open for you to set backup options. Starting from this, all subsequent steps are very important. First of all, on the left, select the sections for hard drives, a copy of which will be created.

And now let's move on to the last ones important settings, which will be located on several tabs. To do this, click on the “Disk backup options” link, which is located on the left:

A window will open where we go to the very first tab – “Scheme”. On this tab, you configure the backup scheme - i.e. the method in which the current and subsequent backups will be created.

I recommend choosing the "Custom Scheme" scheme and setting everything up manually. In the “Backup method” item, it is best to select “Incremental”. In this case, a complete copy of the partitions you have selected will be created first, or in its entirety hard drives, and subsequent times small copies will be created, storing only changes since the last full copy.

For example, my backup plan is as follows: I make backups daily and once a month I create full version, and only changes are saved for the next 30 days. Therefore, in my example, I set the value to “after every 30 incremental copies.”

And since with the advent of a large number of copies (especially with regular creation of full copies), all this will take up more and more space on your media, I also include the function automatic cleaning chains of old versions. I also recommend that you use this to save space.

To do this, enable the item “Delete version chains, since the creation of which ... ... has passed” and indicate the number of days.

Since I make backups once a day and a full copy is created after every 30 incremental ones (that is, after every 30 days), I set automatic removal old versions that are older than 30 days. Thus, it turns out that I create another new full copy, and the old chain (from complete to the last incremental one for a given month) is deleted. Due to this, I don’t waste a lot of space on my drive and there are no 2 or more complete copies stored there, which will take up a lot of space :)

To avoid having to configure these settings again, I recommend checking the “Save as default settings” checkbox.

Go to the “Advanced” tab. On this tab we will go through all the sections and set the necessary settings. In the first section “Image creation mode” we check that the “Archive in sector-by-sector mode” option is disabled. This function will create a copy for us, taking into account all errors on the disk, i.e. will create a complete copy along with the disk structure in addition to the data itself.
1. In the “Backup protection” section we are asked to protect the created archive with a password and encrypt it. I recommend creating a password primarily to protect the archive from viruses. And secondly, in order to protect the copy from prying eyes, if you think that someone might spy on or destroy your data.
  
  If you are setting a password only for the purpose of protecting against viruses, then I recommend setting a simple one, for example: “123”:
  
  We will not choose an encryption method, since it is advisable to do this when working in an environment that is dangerous in every sense, and at the same time, the time to create a backup copy will increase due to encryption.
  
  Nothing should be included in the Pre/Post Commands section, check:
  
  In the “Backup splitting” section, make sure that the value is set to “Automatic”. In this case, Acronis will split the archive itself depending on the selected scheme or even create a copy from one file:
  
  In the “Verification” section, you can enable checking the backup copy for its functionality. Since I constantly create new copies and every month a new full copy, I turn off the check so as not to take up resources again and not be distracted by it. You can enable verification after creation or on a schedule:
  
  In the next section “Duplication” backup copies» you can ask extra bed to store your backup, and it will be duplicated in this storage. This will give even greater security to your data, since a copy will be stored in as many as two places. But not everyone has the opportunity to allocate additional memory space on some storage medium for this. I don't enable this option and just periodically manually copy backups additionally to other locations:
  
  In the “Setting up removable media” section, I recommend unchecking the only checkbox. This is so that when you schedule an automatic backup, you do not need to manually confirm that removable media(for example, a flash drive) connected to the computer:
  
  Let's move on to the "Comments on the backup copy" section, where you can optionally set any notes regarding the backup copy being created. You can leave the field empty:
  
  The Screenshot Settings section allows the program to take a screenshot when starting a backup. The function is almost never used, so it's easier to leave it disabled:
  
  Let's move on to the "Error Handling" section. Here I recommend unchecking the item: “If there is not enough space in the Security Zone, delete the oldest backup copy”:
  
  I’ll tell you later what “Acronis Secure Zone” is and why it might be needed.
  
  The penultimate section, “Turning off the computer,” sometimes turns out to be useful. Here we can activate the function to shut down the computer after the backup is created. It is good to use this function when the backup is, for example, planned for the night or at a time when no one will use the computer, so that the computer then turns off itself and does not remain idle.
  
  The last section “Windows Account” is, in principle, never needed if you work under the user – Administrator. Therefore, we leave the function of starting a backup from another user disabled here:
  
  That's it with the "Advanced" tab :) Let's move on...

Let's move on to the "Performance" tab, which is also not unimportant. Here I recommend setting the compression level to the maximum. In my experience, the duration of creating a backup copy in this case does not increase significantly, but the created archive is sometimes reduced by almost 2 times.

The priority affects how much computer resources Acronis will consume when creating a backup. The higher the priority, the more of them will be consumed, but the faster the backup will be created. If the computer is very productive, then you can safely set the maximum priority, but I recommend “Normal”:

The last 2 tabs: “Notifications” and “Exceptions”, as a rule, are not needed and I recommend leaving everything there as it is configured by default:

The “Exceptions” tab can be useful if you want to indicate some files and folders that do not need to be backed up and Acronis will skip them.

To save the settings, click the “OK” button at the very bottom of this window:

To start a backup, in the main settings window, click the “Archive” button:

If you click not the “Backup” button itself, but the arrow on the side, a list of options will appear: delay the start of the backup for a period of 1 to 6 hours or until it is started manually at any time.

As a result, the backup process we configured will start. Its duration will depend on the volume that is being archived, on the performance of the computer, the selected priority, the degree of compression of the archive and other parameters:

We just have to wait for the backup to finish.

After the copying is completed, its verification may begin if you specified this during setup. And then go to your media or the place where the copy was made and check that the backup copy is in place :)

This is what the archive created by Acronis True Image looks like:

In my example, the archived space had a volume of about 12 GB, and the archive turned out to be 4.9 GB in size. Those. maximum compression made it possible to reduce the archive by more than half, which is just great!

Now let's look at how to backup individual files and folders, rather than the entire system, for restoration if necessary in case of their loss

Backing up individual files/folders

As I mentioned earlier, in Acronis you can create not only entire backup copies of partitions for further restoration of your computer if necessary, but also individual files/folders. This way, you can save space on the media where you will store backups and back up only those data that are really important and cannot be lost.

For example, those who work in boxes using multi-accounts probably have big table with logins and passwords for the boxes themselves, wallets, mail. I know from myself that losing this data is a very sad situation :)

So, let's look at the process of backing up files and folders step by step:

Having launched Acronis True Image, go to the “Backup and Restore” tab as before and click the “File Backup” button there, and from the list that appears select “To local storage”:

The File Backup window will open.

Now all that remains is to configure Extra options backups that you are already familiar with. Click on the link below “File backup options”:

A settings window with 5 tabs will open. All tabs and settings on them are completely identical to those that we have already made when creating a backup copy of the entire system:

We can only wait until the operation is completed and if the volume the copy being created big, then you can go about your business for now, for example, work :)

After completing the backup process, just in case, go to the media where it was performed and check the presence of your backup copy (file with the “.tib” extension):

This is how you can create complete copies of your system on a regular basis so that in case of a “crash” you can then quickly restore it entirely or some separate files/folders. Of course, the instructions turned out to be voluminous and at first glance it all seems complicated :) In fact, the steps are simple, I’m just used to describing each action. But you won’t get confused anywhere and, having done this once, everything will become clear and next time you won’t need any instructions at all.

How to restore a system from a backup copy immediately to a finished one working condition, as well as recovering individual files/folders, I will discuss in the following article:

I won't say goodbye for a long time :) Bye everyone!

Regularity. Creating backups should be as regular as brushing your teeth in the morning.
Examination. Check the backup you just made. It will be very disappointing if, at a particularly tense moment, your lifesaver turns out to be a dummy. Open several files from the archive and make sure they work.
Separateness. It is better to store backups not in one place, but in at least two. For example, on an external hard drive and in the cloud. After all, disks sometimes fail, and cloud storage may not be available at the right time.
Demarcation. Divide what you plan to store into several clear categories. Data of varying importance require and different approach to archiving.

System solutions

Windows

Windows has a standard backup and recovery tool that allows you to save both individual files and an entire image from which you can restore the system in the event of a failure.

Windows 7

Go to the “Control Panel” by left-clicking on the “Start” button and selecting the appropriate item. In “Control Panel” select “System and Security” → “Backup computer data” → “Set up backup”.

Next, the system will ask you to specify a location to save the archive. Please note: if you want to backup data from drive C, you will not be able to save it there. To do this, you will have to select another medium, for example a second physical disk, flash drive, DVD or folder in local network. If we recall the principles of creating a backup, the archive must be stored on a separate medium, and not on the very computer from which the copy was made.

Next, the system will prompt you to automatically or manually select folders for archiving. Click on “Give me a choice” and in the window that opens, check the boxes for the folders you want to save. Click Next → Save settings and exit.

Now the “Archive” button appears in the “Backup or restore files” window. Clicking on it will start the process of archiving your data.

Recovery follows the same principle. To do this, click on the item “Select another backup to restore files” and indicate the one into which the backup was made.

Windows 8 and above

The built-in File History tool allows for real-time archiving. For it to work, only initial setup is required.

Go to "Control Panel". To do this, click on the “Start” button with the right mouse button and find the desired line in the context menu.

As a storage location, select a disk other than the system one, a flash drive or network folder. Click Enable.

File History will automatically copy the following libraries: Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos - and standard folders user: Windows, Desktop, Favorites.

By default, backups are made every hour, but you can change this time, for example, to 10 minutes. However, this will require more volume disk space. The retention time for each copy can be configured in the Advanced Options menu.

macOS

Time Machine - standard solution Apple, designed to create backup copies of applications, files and folders, documents, videos, music.

To work with Time Machine you will need third party storage data, such as a flash drive, external hard drive or network solution.

When connecting an external drive to Mac computer You should be prompted: should I use it as a backup storage? Select "Use As" backup disk».

If the window does not appear, you must select the backup disk manually:

go to the menu and open Time Machine settings;
click on “Select backup disk”;
select the one you need and click on “Use disk”.

Backups will be automatically created once per hour, copies for the past month - every day, and backups for the entire time - every week. Don't be afraid that the capacity of your hard drive will be small. Time Machine will only save changed information, and old copies will be automatically deleted as disk space becomes full.

Android

Android Backup Service

Designed to create backup copies of Google account data. With its help you can save:

data about Wi-Fi networks;
desktop wallpaper;
Gmail settings;
applications Google Play;
language and input settings;
date and time;
row settings third party applications.

To create a backup you need:

open device settings;
go to “Personal data” → “Restore and reset”;
enable "Data backup".

To restore data on another device, just log in with your account. To restore the settings of saved applications, go to “Personal data” → “Recovery and reset” → “Auto recovery”.

Synchronization

Android provides a standard synchronization tool that allows you to save user contacts, applications installed from Google Play, calendar, display settings, languages and input methods, data Google Drive and settings for some third-party applications. The tool requires a Google account.

Synchronization in Android is enabled by default. If you want to get the latest backup copy, do the following:

open your phone settings;
in the “Accounts and Synchronization” section, select Google;
Check the required boxes and click “Synchronize”.

Data will automatically be sent to the cloud Google storage. To restore them on another Android device, just connect your account.

You can also sync most popular accounts: Skype, Telegram, Viber and VKontakte. To synchronize photos and images, Android has a built-in Google solution Photo.

iOS

iTunes

Universal Apple app to receive and play content. Allows you to locally save data from a device connected to a computer under Windows control or macOS. This is especially convenient when you do not have Internet access.

To create a copy when iTunes help do the following:

connect the device to the computer;
go to the “Devices” tab;
click "Sync".

photos;
notes;
contact list;
calendar;
SMS/MMS messages;
Safari browser;
access point settings;
application data;
main screen view.

iCloud

Cloud service for storing user data. Like any cloud, it has two limitations: the need for Internet access and a relatively small (5 GB) amount of free allocated space.

To save data when iCloud help On your device, open Settings → iCloud → Backup and start the backup process.

Saved in iCloud:

purchase history in the App Store;
photos;
Phone settings;
application data;
main screen view;
ringtones;
voice mail.