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Personal Backup Strategy

3-2-1 Rule

Source: 3-2-1 strategy for backing up your personal data - UW–⁠Madison Information Technology (wisc.edu)

Protect your data by following the 3-2-1 rule; make 3 copies, on 2 different types of media, 1 of which is in a remote location. Redundancy is key in ensuring that at least one copy of your important files is available when you need it. 

Here’s a simple strategy for following the 3-2-1 rule:

  1. Create a system recovery image of your primary computer. A system recovery image will allow you to recover your installed OS, applications and data files after a catastrophic failure of your hard drive. Because you’ll refresh this back up less frequently, you might use DVD ROM media.  DVD ROM backups are slow and tedious, though, so you may want to use an external hard drive instead. Either satisfies the 3-2-1 rules requirement for different media.
  2. Use a back up application and an external drive to create a file system backup, so that you can conveniently recover individual files as needed. Your first backup of this type will be a full back up of all data files and documents, and may take a while. Subsequent backups will be incremental, i.e., they will only include files that have changed since your last backup. Using an external hard drive for this purpose, along with a backup application that runs automatically in the background makes this effortless and quick, once its set up. For more about backup applications, see this list of back up tools.
    Note: if you used an external drive in step one, use a different drive for this step in order to meet the 3-2-1 requirement of using different media.
  3. Make copies of really important files in another location, such as a cloud storage service, or an external drive that will be stored in a safe, remote location. Remember to encrypt any sensitive files before they leave your computer!

What to Backup?

  • Todo: List every device I own that contains information or data I would like to backup and answer these questions:
  • Where is its local backup located? | How often is it backed up locally?
  • Where is its offsite/cloud backup located? | How often is it backed up offsite/in the cloud?

Online Services

  • GitHub
  • Gmail
  • Google Drive
  • Google Calendar
  • Google Contacts
  • Raindrop
  • Readwise
  • Instapaper
  • Evernote

Desktop PCs

  • DESKTOP-MSI
  • DESKTOP-LENOVO
  • DESKTOP-PWC

DESKTOP-MSI

  • Local Backup:

  • Built-in Windows File Recovery backup up to external hard drive

  • EaseUS Todo Backup to external hard drive

  • Cloud Backup

  • Backblaze - backed up continuously

OneDrive

Backlinks:

list from [[Personal Backup Strategy]] AND -"Changelog"