As a professional computer consultant, I recommend the best and most reliable products to my clients – if I didn’t, I’d be stuck fixing them.
By limiting my clients use of poor products I save them money, hassles and risk - and save myself the aggravation of unnecessary repairs.
Disclosure:
These products I recommend are the same ones I like and use every day myself. However, you should know that I get a (tiny) sales commission if you purchase one of them via my links here. If you appreciate all the free advice here, please consider my recommended products when you need any such.
Below are my recommendations:
Backup Software:
For home and small office users, Acronis ‘True Image Home edition’ is the best choice. I’ve been using Acronis ‘True Image’ for a few years now and find it trustworthy, of high quality, reliable, and as easy to setup and use as any such product. I’ve had considerable experience with 3 or 4 backup programs in the past.
I had issues with the first version of True Image I ever used, 2 versions ago, but none with newer versions. Iv’e run it under Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. I’m currently running it under both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows XP Pro.
Recover from a Disaster to ‘Bare Metal’
Don’t settle for a backup solution (like uploading to the web) which only protects your work product. Think of the productive hours you’d loose if your hard drive failed and you had to install another drive, plus install (and do many upgrades) to Windows and to all your software products (do you know where all your license keys are?)! And what about your emails? Sure, you can pay someone to do all that for you. But it’s a huge job and things are bound to go missing – A good backup image is a much easier way to recover.
Use a program, like Acronis ‘True Image’ backup, which makes an image of your whole hard drive. Such an image can be easily written right back onto a new hard drive (or a new computer), giving you a perfect clone of your previous drive and all software and settings. All you need to do is use their built-in feature to burn a “Recovery CD” when you install ‘True Image’ – or when you make major changes to your computer. After a disaster, you can then simply start your computer from this CD, start the recovery process with a couple of clicks and supply your backup file (from your backup hard drive).
And ‘True Image’ also lets you easily recover individual files or folders from your inside full backup image (unlike Windows 7). It really delivers peace of mind. And as a pro who has had to do several full disaster recoveries, I know it works, and I know how many hours or days it saves after a disaster.
How prepared are you for a computer disaster?
Do you even know where all the license numbers and serial numbers and web addresses for all your software products and vendor sites are? Many people don’t. And if you bought a big name brand computer like a Dell, the only disaster recovery they offer is to run a CD which will restore your computer to the condition it was in when you bought it – minus all the software and work you’ve added since.
Backup Hardware:
To my mind, there are 2 kinds of backup computer hardware:
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The hard drive you save your periodic backup image onto (I prefer Seagate hard drives).
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An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), which will keep your computer and other components running long enough for a safe and automatic shutdown of your computer (even if you’re not around) when your power fails. A UPS is also great if you need to keep a VOIP phone service, like Vonage, running during a blackout.
