How to perform an external data backup?

I am planning on restoring my computer to factory settings due to irus and spyware infections. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a simple backup system like this one I found. I need to backup all of my data: documents, pictures, music, videos, etc. and to then restore the data back to the newly reformatted system. Any suggestions?

“Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.” -Mitchell Kapor

 

External hard drive should be quickest. Remember to always use 2, in case one fails before you restore your PC.

 

my set:

ghost 4 weekly backup entire internal hard drives and quick restore system in tha case of drive failure

genius backup for daily bk of data documents etc.

 

I use Ghost (Version 14) and do an image backup to multiple external drives. By multiple, what I mean is, I do a full backup each week, and rotate among my various external drives from week-to-week.

 

Not knowing what OS/ system you have, in MS Windows Server 2008 Enterprise I run a RAID array with mirroring plus shadowing with nightly offsite backups.

The RAID with mirroring protects against a single hard disc failure. Everything written to one is concurrently written to the other.

The shadowing allows giong back through the last 64 "snapshots" of what was/ is on the disc. This would be helpful, for instance, if you got a virus attack you could "go back" to when you had a stable system.

The nightly offsite backups allow going back through the past 30 days of backups. This can be useful if, for instance, you had a system threat arise but not execute, you could "go back" to a stable time. Also in the event you entire facility/ office/ house/ etc. ceased to exist (fire, etc.) you can restore the entire system to any other system in the world. You are limited though in bandwidth in restoring a system so don't think it's "instant" because it is not. You can do simple math to take your backup set size divided by the datarate (20mpbs on a decent cable modem) to see how long it would take to restore a completely failed system. The downside is the time to restore but the upside is that there is a means to restore.

It all depends on what you have going on.

For simple (and I mean really simple to use) free and/ or cheap offiste backup check out idrive dot com. They have a small free service and cheap bigger services. No hardware necessary and free software from them.

 

If you're going to restore your rig to factory original, you probably don't want to make a "system" backup.... just back up your important files.

Drag and drop Data files/folders to a USB drive... flash drive is OK if it's big enough to hold your stuff. Otherwise, get USB (or eSATA) external hard drive.