Backup and Recovery
Backing up your documents, photos, and other files is crucial if you don’t want to lose them. A virus could wipe them out, your hard drive could go kaput, or (even worse) you could have a fire or other disaster destroy them. You should never let a tight budget stop you from safeguarding your data. At the very least you should backup irreplaceable files to DVDs, an external drive, or another computer.
DirSyncPro is 100% free and open source synchronization program to consider using on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Unlike most free editions of commercial products, it doesn’t impose any limits, such as on the amount of files and folders you can sync. It supports scheduled incremental backups to external drives or other computers via network shares.
It’s ideal to keep a backup of your files offsite too. There are numerous online storage and backup providers out there. Unfortunately, most that offer a free edition don’t support automated backups and have other major limitations.
If 5GB would be enough space for backing up your important files, you could sign up for the free online storage service from Box.net. Then you could mount your storage space as a drive in Windows by creating a mapped network drive to https://www.box.net/dav and use your Box.net username and password. Then you can configure DirSyncPro to back up to the mapped network drive.
