How do I set up backups that actually protect me?
Building a backup that survives deletion, theft, fire and ransomware — which sync alone does not.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 1 hr 30 min
- Read
- 2 min
Short answer
Follow the 3-2-1 principle: three copies, on two different types of media, one kept off-site. Cloud sync is not a backup because it mirrors deletions, and that is the gap most people have without realising.
Most people have one copy and one mirror, which protects against a broken device and nothing else. A genuine backup survives you deleting something, malware encrypting it, and the house burning down.
What you'll need
- External drive
- Cloud storage
- A calendar reminder (optional)
Step by step
- List what you would genuinely miss.Photos, documents, email, contacts, anything creative. Most people find it is a smaller set than they expected, which makes it manageable.
- Apply the 3-2-1 principle.Three copies of the data, on two different media types, with one off-site. It sounds elaborate and it is usually just a computer, a drive and a cloud account.
- Understand that sync is not backup.Cloud sync mirrors deletions and corruption to every device. It protects against hardware failure and nothing else. This is the most common misunderstanding.
- Set up automatic local backup to an external drive.Time Machine on Mac, File History or a backup tool on Windows. Automatic, because a manual backup will not happen consistently.
- Set up an off-site copy.A cloud backup service, or a second drive kept elsewhere and swapped periodically. This is what protects against fire, flood and theft.
- Include your phone.Automatic cloud backup plus periodic export of photos to your computer, which then gets backed up. Phones hold the most irreplaceable data and the least redundancy.
- Keep a version history.So you can recover a file from before it was corrupted or encrypted. Backups that only hold the current state do not protect against ransomware.
- Test a restore.Actually recover a file from each backup. An untested backup is an assumption, and silently failing backups are extremely common.
Tips
- Set a calendar reminder to check the backups are still running every few months. Silent failure after a software update is normal.
- A drive left permanently connected can be encrypted by ransomware along with the computer. An occasionally-connected drive or a versioned cloud backup avoids that.
- Encrypt any backup drive you keep off-site. It is a copy of everything you own and it is portable.
Common mistakes
- Relying on cloud sync as a backup — It mirrors deletions and corruption. A file deleted by accident or encrypted by malware disappears from every copy.
- Keeping the only backup drive next to the computer — Fire, flood and theft take both. One copy must be off-site for the backup to mean anything.
- Never testing a restore — Backups fail silently. Discovering an empty or corrupt backup at the moment you need it is the worst possible time.
Questions people ask
What is the 3-2-1 backup rule?
Three copies of your data, on two different types of media, with one copy stored off-site. It covers hardware failure, accidental deletion and physical loss of the property.
Is cloud storage enough for backup?
Not on its own if it is sync-based, because deletions and corruption propagate to every copy. A versioned backup service or a separate offline copy is what protects against that.