RiverNan Loc: Eastern Pa

What do you do.
after the crash I purchased 2 new My Passport Ultras

I immediately plugged them in and did a back up.
I did not read the manual or set up auto back up.

I downloaded the manual today and now wonder Oh what to do...

what do you do?

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

I'm a computer guy. I never read the manual when working on my own stuff. I ALWAYS read the manual when I'm on the customer's dime. The drives should work fine as drives. If you want to use the manufacturer's software, that's great. Are you Mac or PC? Either one should have a backup that you can setup built-in to the OS. Do you want a full system backup or only your data? Lots of choices to make...

Selkii Loc: Oakland, CA & Vancouver Island

I'm also a computer professional. The only thing to add to Mr PC's post is regarding backup software. I don't like the ones that come with these HDs. Apple has a good one built-in. For PC's, there are a bunch of third party that work well, but I prefer Second Copy using its "exact copy" setting - easy to set up, easy to use. You can download a trial copy.

The easier a backup software is to use, the more likely you will backup faithfully.

RiverNan Loc: Eastern Pa

Mr. PC...
I was told NOT to leave the externals hooked up so was wondering how an auto back up would work?

also Ive been just copying and pasting and Im thinking the auto would be easier...so do Ileave the external attached and set up an auto back up...it offers the cloud?

too many options confuse me.
I have a PC and will probably stick to it when I get a new system.

In fact if your up to it I would take a recommendation for a new laptop best for photography.

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

Depends on how deep you want to get with the new laptop. I have an I-5 and 4MB on an ASUS 14" Win 8.1 Ultrabook and it keeps up OK with working on my RAW files in Lightroom when I'm on one of my Africa mission trips. If you're a pro, I would get something with an Intel I-7 or the baddest chip AMD makes and 8GB of RAM or more, plus a hybrid SSD/SATA drive. The newer drives allow you to put your OS and applications on the fast SSD partition and store your work product on the cheaper and slower regular drive part of the drive. As for keeping drives plugged in, I have an external plugged into my main desktop at all times, but the latest Cryptolocker style of ransomware viruses encrypt all of your data on all accessible drives and hold it for ransom. Therefore, a good cloud backup like Carbonite, Mozy or iCloud, to name a few, is essential. The good ones give you a rolling month of all of your files to get back to if the bad guys wipe you out. The problem is, most online backups will do JPG files, but not RAW due to their size. For those, I burn a set of Blu-ray disks every year of the past year's RAW and edited JPGs in addition to having them on my computer and external drives. Hope this helps. Feel free to PM me for any more advice.

mdfenton

Does anyone have experience using WIN 7 "Create a system image" in the Control Panel ? I want a total system image on a Western Digital Ultra external HD. I've studied about 3rd party imaging programs (pay and free). All are either too complicated (for me)or have many negative reviews from users.