Have you been wondering how to backup your computer? Many people have years of pictures, videos and music saved on their computers. A huge risk is the hard drive failing, or getting a ransomware infection and losing it all.
I work in IT and administer the backup infrastructure as part of my job duties. I have seen people accidentally move files, delete files, or have corrupted files that I have to recover. It’s nice knowing we have a resilient backup system in place and can recover from these types of issues.
Most businesses have some type of backup system in place, but many people do not. We neglect to protect our own data. There are many different options out there for this. The one that I prefer is Veeam. Veeam offers a free agent for Windows. It’s a simple, lightweight agent and fairly straightforward install. This agent along with an external USB drive provides the solution on how to backup your computer.
Prior to starting this process, you will need some type of external USB drive to be your backup repository. Depending on the size of the hard drive, this will vary. I recommend at least a 1TB external hard drive.
Downloading Veeam Agent to Backup Your Computer
Once you have that necessary hardware, you can just go to Veeam’s website and find the Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows. You will have to setup an account, and provide your email address.
Once your account is setup and you login, you can download the agent. Depending on your internet speed, it may take a few minutes. It will be saved to your downloads folder in a .zip file.
You can go to your downloads folder, right-click, and extract the contents of the folder.
Veeam Agent Installation to Backup Your Computer
After you extract the files, go to the extracted location, and find the executable file. If your computer is pending a restart from updates, you need to go ahead and restart it. Now you can either double click the executable file, or right click it and select “Run as Administrator”. You can just click yes if you get the UAC prompt to install it.
Select both check boxes to accept the terms on both licenses’ agreements after reviewing them as you like. Then you can click “Install”.
Once the installation is completed, you can setup your backup job and schedule. I already had an external USB drive plugged into my laptop. The default backup schedule is to do a daily backup at 12:30 AM. You can easily adjust this schedule to whatever works best for you. You can also skip the step to configure everything later.
You can allow it to change your power plan to allow the backup schedule to wake the computer up from sleep. This allow the backup to occur on the default schedule. You don’t have to do this if you want to have a different schedule.
Another very important step to perform is to go ahead and create the recovery media if you need to recover the computer. If your hard drive fails and you install a new one, this will allow you to easily boot up and recover from your backup.
It is much easier to recover from a failed hard drive if you go ahead and create it from the same computer. This ensures that all the drivers are included in the backup image.
Creating Recovery Media
If you decide to run the Veeam Recovery Media creation wizard, select the USB drive you would like to use. I do recommend selecting at least the recommended choices that are listed. By including these you will have a much easier time connecting to your wireless network. You will also have minimal issues with devices and peripherals (printers, etc.) that you have connected to your computer.
You need to keep in mind that using this USB drive as your recovery media will erase the contents. Make sure you have everything saved from it that you want to keep.
Select create and you are on your way to creating your recovery media.
Finally, select Finish and you are done with this step. I highly recommend marking this USB drive with exactly what it is and putting it in a safe location. It won’t be a showstopper if you lose it or erase it, but I would verify you still have it periodically.
Backing Up Your Computer
After clicking finish, I would open your Veeam control panel. You can also access these selections by clicking your start button and going to the Veeam software folder. Unless you have purchased a license, you can just run the software in free mode.
If you select No and run in free mode, you can go ahead and select Backup Now. This will go ahead and start a backup job. Finally, you are very close on getting a backup for your computer now.
The external drive that I used is USB 3.0, so it has a decent transfer speed. It only took 11 minutes and 29 seconds for the backup job to complete.
You can “Restore Files” or “Restore Volumes” if needed. You can also open the utility in File Explorer if you are more comfortable navigating with that tool.
If you want to edit the backup job settings, just select the arrow on the right and the menu will pull up. You can select edit here and make any changes to the schedule or other settings.
Notably, a very important feature in my opinion is selecting the “When back target is connected” check box. Then you can select the “Eject removable storage once backup is completed (ransomware protection)” checkbox. This helps protect your backup from getting corrupted from a ransomware infection.
Backup Job Scheduling
Your USB drive is isolated from the PC when it’s ejected, and it will be more difficult for ransomware to corrupt it. There are some variations of ransomware that will target your backups first. This causes you to lose your method of recovery before they attack your computer.
This free tool is very helpful. There’s not much difference at all between the free version and the paid version from what you will need to do. If you have a small business and not a very big budget for backups, this is a great option as well.
Of course, there are limitations with the free version. But this is a definite step in the right direction to protect yourself in the event of a hardware failure. Furthermore, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when you will experience an event.
Finally, spending a little time and money on hardware for this will save you a lot of time and money later. I hope you found this information useful on how to backup your computer.
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