Choose your devices
Step one is working out where to store the critical copies of your data – both offline and over the internet.
THE FIRST THING you need to do when setting up your backup regimen is to ensure you have at least two suitable backup destinations in place. One should be ‘local’, as in the same room (or network) as your PC, so typically an external drive of some kind, connected via USB or network cable. The other should be ‘remote’, so housed in a separate location in case you’re subject to fire, theft or damage.
Secure file storage is important for all your files, but especially for important and personal information - like your family tree research!
NETWORK VERSUS USB
When it comes to your local backup location, you’ve a straight choice between a drive directly attached to your PC, or a network hard drive (also known as a NAS – Network Attached Storage). The latter is accessible to other PCs in your network, so if you’re looking to set up a backup regimen for your entire household, this could be more cost-effective.
That said, you need to ensure that everyone has sufficient backup space – you can get a rough guesstimate by asking everyone to open File Explorer, browse to C:\Users, right-click their personal user folder and choose Properties. Add that figure to the current size of drive C, then double it to ensure they have enough space in the medium term for backing up to.
You then need to add these figures together to arrive at the size of NAS drive you’ll need for everyone in your household. Then investigate the cost of a single NAS drive versus individual USB drives to see which is more cost-effective – a 4TB NAS drive might turn out more expensive than four 1TB drives, for example.
Network drives have other advantages above and beyond mere centralised backup devices, though – the more you pay, the more flexible they can be. There’s another reason why a NAS might be better than simple USB drive – it can also serve as an alternative to a cloud-based backup (see the box below).
BACK UP TO THE CLOUD
Your second backup should be housed in a remote location. The expensive-but-secure option would be to invest in two identical network drives: one for your own home; another in a trusted remote location (say a friend or family member). You’d then back up to your own network drive as part of your primary backup and then mirror it to the remote drive, typically using a technology known as Remote Replication, which works over the internet.
“A NAS might be better than a simple USB drive – it can also serve as an alternative to a cloud-based backup”
This involves a hefty up-front investment and requires a willing friend or family member with unlimited internet access to house the remote drive. You could mitigate the cost by convincing them to buy their own drive and then enable them to mirror their backups to your drive as part of a reciprocal arrangement.
A more convenient solution is to use a cloud backup solution. The simplest one to use is OneDrive, since it’s already built into Windows. You only get 5GB of free space these days, but if you pair it with an Office 365 package, you get 1TB along with use of Office for a year. Office 365 Personal for one user (multiple devices) costs $10 a month (or $99 a year), while Office 365 Home covers up to six separate users for just $13 a month/$129 a year. Check some online retailers for even better deals.
If you don’t need Office – never mind 1TB of space – then Google Drive is a good alternative. 15GB is provided free, or pay $24.99 a year for 100GB, which should be ample for your key data files. It’s all linked into your Google account – head over to drive.google.com, click the Settings button and choose ‘Get Backup and Sync for Windows’ to get started.
Worried about the security of cloud storage? Files are encrypted before they’re uploaded, but the encryption keys are often held by your cloud provider, meaning they could technically be handed over to a third party. If that’s a deal breaker, and you can’t afford the NAS option, you have two options. One, choose a more expensive cloud provider that offers end-to-end encryption, which means they have no access to your keys. SpiderOak ( https://spideroak.com/) is one such provider – its SpiderOak OneBackup plans start from US$5/month ($59.99 a year) for 150GB of storage. Alternatively, check out the box below on Cryptomator. This free tool adds a secondary layer of encryption (one you control) to your most sensitive files, and works with any cloud provider, including OneDrive and Google Drive.