How to set up foolproof backups in two minutes (Windows, Linux and OSX)
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008We’re going to set up a system to back up your laptop or desktop to an external USB hard drive. It’ll run the backups automatically and you’ll be able to restore files from any point in the past.
I’m setting this up on Linux, but remember that you can use Windows or OSX if you like.
Download and install SyncDroid from here.
When you start it up, SyncDroid will ask you what you’d like to sync against. Click ‘An external hard drive or USB stick’.
SyncDroid will ask you which disk and provide some suggestions. I’m going to use a 160GB USB hard drive. You can use anything that you have available. Remember that the more space the external drive has, the more choices you have when you want to restore files from the past.
SyncDroid will ask you which files you’d like to sync to the drive. I’m just going to keep my home directory.
That’s it! SyncDroid will start the backup immediately. It’ll try to be polite, so you can keep working on your computer while it’s going. And anytime you change a file on your computer, it’ll automatically back it up.
