Our lives are fully entwined in the digital world, and many important records only exist digitally. Given how important they can be to our daily lives, having robust, reliable backups is absolutely essential. This is how I handle backups using open-source software that works on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Organization Is Key
It doesn’t matter how complicated or technically perfect your backup solution is, if you have bad organization, it won’t matter very much.
Before you set up any backup solution, you should take the time to sort all the important files and folders you want to protect. This could be as simple as dumping them all into one folder, or it could include nested folders with tons of folders each dedicated to a specific thing.
Regardless of how you collect your files, once you have them, you need to make sure that they’re secure.
Encrypt Your Backups
Backups tend to contain sensitive information, sometimes enough to steal your identity, so it is important to take steps to protect them should your backup fall into the wrong hands.
Since I move between multiple PCs and operating systems, I like to encrypt my backups before they get moved off my system. That way, I know that they’re reasonably safe, even if I just quickly copy and paste them onto a thumb drive. I typically use VeraCrypt for this, though any reputable encryption program will work.
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Alternatively, you could just stick them in an encrypted archive (like a ZIP or RAR file) that you password-protect. It isn’t the most secure thing in the world, but it is enough to stop the overwhelming majority of attackers as long as you pick a good password.
Three Backups Is Minimum
I roughly follow the 3-2-1 rule, which states you want three different backups in two forms at more than one location. In my case, I use hard disk drives (HDDs) and cloud. Specifically, I use Google Drive, OneDrive, an external HDD, and some HDDs in a network-attached storage device.
I’d recommend against using SSDs or flash drives for any kind of long-term storage—it isn’t cut and dry, but they’re probably less reliable when stored in a powered-off state than traditional hard drives.
How I Back Up My PC With an Open-Souce App
With your files organized, and your storage methods picked out, there is only one thing left to do: actually back up your files.
To actually create my backups, I use FreeFileSync. It isn’t the most space-efficient solution, but it is resilient.
For this example, I’ll mirror one folder to three separate locations. I’m going to copy the original folder with all of my important documents to two separate locations to ensure that OneDrive and Google Drive don’t fight, plus a third location that could be a removeable HDD attached to my PC.
You might be tempted to try pointing both Google Drive and OneDrive at the same folder to sync the contents to both services simultaneously. It has been my experience that OneDrive will eventually break that setup, potentially resulting in data loss.
After FreeFileSync has been downloaded and installed, click the gear icon next to Synchronize and select “Mirror.” That just tells FreeFileSync that we’re going to directly copy all the contents of the first folder.
Once FreeFileSync has been set to mirror files, you just need to tell it what you want to go, and where.
I’m making three separate copies of one folder, so I created three duplicate lines on the left by clicking the green plus button, then entered the folder I want to copy three times. On the right, I specified the three different places I’d like those files to be copied to.
Now, whenever I want to make a backup, all I need to do is click the “Synchronize (Mirror)” button.
If you want to get really fancy, you could even go to File > Save as Batch Job, then all you need to do is double-click the batch file to trigger an update. Alternatively, you could use Windows Task Scheduler to create a backup on whatever interval you like.
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You really aren’t limited to just three options either. You can use this to create complicated backup schemes that move specific folders to specific cloud services if you want.
FreeFileSync is a little more “hands on” than some other synchronization approaches out there, but the level of granular control available is worth the tradeoff for me.
As an additional perk, it also works on Linux and macOS, which means once you have a system you like, you can set up complementary backup systems on other devices too, and without having to relearn a new program.
