Your first backup with Areca

After successfully passing through all the checkpoints, you can now move on to creating your first backup with Areca. First, execute the Areca GUI by running ./areca.sh from the console. You’ll see a window (as shown in Figure 1) open up on your screen. Let’s configure a few things.

Set your workspace: The section on the left of the window is your workspace area. The Select button here can be used to set your workspace location. This should be the safe location on your computer, where Areca saves its configuration files. You can see the default workspace location here.

Set your target: Now you need to set up your target in order to run your first backup. Go to Edit > New Target. You’ll have something like what’s shown in Figure 2. Now set your Target name, Local Repository (this is where your backup archive is saved), Archive’s name and also Sources by switching the tab at the left, and then do any other configuration you’d like to. Next, click on Save. Your target has been created. Your main window now looks something like what’s shown in Figure 3.

Running your backup: After doing all that is necessary, you can run your first backup. Go to Run > Backup. Then select Use Default Working Directory to use a temporary sub-directory (created at the same location as the archives). Click on Start Backup. Great, so you have now created your first backup.

Recovery: You have a backup archive of your data now. This may be used at any time to recover your lost data. Just select your target from the workspace on the left and right click on the archive on the right section, which you wish to use to recover your data. Click Recover, choose the location, and click OK.

At this stage, you can easily create backups using the Areca GUI. However, you can further learn to configure your backups at http://areca-backup.org/tutorial.php.