It’s boring to read about backup. It’s interesting to do a backup. It’s thrilling to actually use a backup that saves your keister.

The Actual Backup

Both Windows 7 and Windows Vista come with decent backup applications. In Windows Vista there are two locations to visit: The Backup and Restore Center and the Backup Status and Configuration window. They’re both pretty much the same.

In Windows Vista, there is the Backup and Restore window, found in the Control Panel.

There are two options for backing up your stuff in Windows:

System Image or Complete PC Backup. This option creates what’s known as a full backup, a copy of every file on your computer from the operating system to your programs to all the stuff you store and create. It needs to be done initially, but rarely after that.

The System Image or Complete PC Backup isn’t available with all versions of Windows. That’s okay because it’s easy to restore the operating system from the original installation disc(s), as well as your software. The important thing to backup is your own stuff, which changes frequently.

Regular Backup. The non-system image/complete backup is just a regular backup, a copy of all your files, folders, pictures, videos, settings, and so on. This type of backup needs to be done often.

How often? If you use your computer for work, then every day. Otherwise, at least once a week.

The backup software lets you schedule the regular backup, as well as choose which types of files to backup. My advice: Backup everything.

On the Mac, the backup program is Time Machine. It performs a full backup initially, then an incremental backup every hour. Older backups are purged and coalesced over time. It all happens automatically after you setup and activate Time Machine.

Backup Terminology

Here are the traditional terms associated with backup:

Clone. This isn’t really a backup, but actually a track-by-track duplicate of an existing media, such as a hard drive. Essentially it’s a full backup, but mostly used to create a duplicate of your system on another computer or for recovery purposes.

Differential. All files that have changed since the last backup are backed up, even if those files have already been backed up with an incremental backup. The differential backup makes it easier to rebuild and restore a full file system, and it uses less storage space than an incremental backup.

Full. All files are backed up, everything.

Image. This term could imply a raw copy of the data stored on your computer, but generally it’s a full backup of all the files stored on your computer, including any files needed to start (boot) the computer.

Incremental. Only files that have changed since the last backup are backed up. Most backups you perform after the initial full backup are incremental backups.

Selective. Only specific files are backed up, such as files in a folder, files of a certain type, or files created after a certain date.