Windows users: How do you back up your data?

Because I live in an apartment, which can burn down to the ground at any time due to any number of careless tenants I am forced to live around-I have a 160GB Western Digital Hard drive I back up my files onto and leave it in my departments’ locker.

I would think a seperate hard drive would be best.

Instructions (and software suggestion) for making a bootable clone of your Windows operating system can be found here. Incremental backup software can be found here and here.

I pay for an online storage service. All my backup is stored there. It’s worked quite well.

I agree with @POLICE. A cloning software won’t work if your physical computer gets damaged in a crucial area.

I use my 1tb western digital external hdd. Windows 7 has backup included. For me it pops up as one of my flag notifications. It makes a backup that you can choose to auto update as often as you like. You also have the option of whether or not you want to make a backup image. using windows7 professional

I use two methods. External hard drive and mozy.com.

Windows 7 includes both data and system backup software.

1) System Restore
Constantly saves system info and files, even your documents. For example, if you mess up a Word doc, System Restore will have the previous version. If you install a new driver and it messes up your PC, System Restore can revert to the previous driver.

2) System Image
A clone
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/What-is-a-system-image

3) Windows Backup
Traditional data backup
Accessed via the Backup and Restore control panel
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Back-up-and-restore-frequently-asked-questions

4) Backup to the cloud
There are a lot of great tools to automatically back up files to the Internet. Here are three I have used for Windows.

Dropbox.com
Highly recommended
Automatically backs up a folder of your choosing
2GB free (you can pay for more)
Windows, Mac & Linux compatible
Syncs among your machines PLUS keeps a copy online

Mesh.com (Microsoft Live Mesh)
5GB free
Backs up multiple folders
Syncs among your machines PLUS keeps a copy online

Skydrive.live.com (Microsoft Windows Live)
25GB free
You manually save files, not automatic
Online only – does not sync to you your machines

I used Carbonite for most of my regular files.
For stuff like videos and large stuff that doesn’t change much, I back up onto DVD or a home server every now and then