Windows 7 / Getting Started

Best Practices for Computer Backups

The backup and restore tools built into Windows 7 are intended for home users and small businesses. Typically, enterprises will need a third-party backup-management tool to manage the large number of client computers.

However, Windows 7 backup can be very useful in many common scenarios:

  • Mobile users Mobile users often travel with their computers, preventing network backups from succeeding. For these users, you should provide external storage that they can use to back up their computers while they are away from the office. Typically, this would be an external USB hard drive. Mobile users can also back up to writable DVDs (if the computer is equipped with a DVD burner) or a large-capacity portable audio player that can act as an external hard disk.
  • Users who work from home Users who work from home may not have sufficient bandwidth to participate in network backups. Additionally, their connectivity may not always be stable enough to allow them to store important files on your internal servers. To reduce the risk of these workers losing important data, equip users with external storage and configure automatic backups.
  • Small or branch offices To back up computers in small or branch offices with a 100- Mbps or faster LAN, configure a server with sufficient disk storage for backups from each computer. Then schedule automatic backups to store files to a shared folder on the server. Alternatively, you can use network attached storage (NAS).

Keeping an external hard disk attached to a computer with automatic updates enabled is the most convenient and reliable way to back up a computer. However, because the backup media is physically close to the computer, this configuration does not protect against common data recovery scenarios such as theft, fire, or electrical surges. To protect against these threats, users should perform weekly full backups to a second external storage device and then store that storage device securely at a different location. For the best protection, users should have two off-site storage devices and alternate between them so that one device is always off-site, even when a backup is being performed.

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In this tutorial:

  1. Managing Disks and File Systems
  2. Overview of Partitioning Disks
  3. How to Choose Between MBR or GPT
  4. Converting from MBR to GPT Disks
  5. GPT Partitions
  6. Choosing Basic or Dynamic Disks
  7. Working with Volumes
  8. How to Create a Simple Volume
  9. How to Create a Spanned Volume
  10. How to Create a Striped Volume
  11. How to Resize a Volume
  12. How to Delete a Volume
  13. How to Create and Use a Virtual Hard Disk
  14. File System Fragmentation
  15. Backup And Restore
  16. How File Backups Work
  17. File and Folder Backup Structure
  18. How System Image Backups Work
  19. How to Start a System Image Backup from the Command Line
  20. How to Restore a System Image Backup
  21. System Image Backup Structure
  22. Best Practices for Computer Backups
  23. How to Manage Backup Using Group Policy Settings
  24. Previous Versions and Shadow Copies
  25. How to Manage Shadow Copies
  26. How to Restore a File with Previous Versions
  27. How to Configure Previous Versions with Group Policy Settings
  28. Windows ReadyBoost
  29. BitLocker Drive Encryption
  30. How BitLocker Encrypts Data
  31. How BitLocker Protects Data
  32. TPM with External Key (Require Startup USB Key At Every Startup)
  33. TPM with PIN (Require PIN At Every Startup)
  34. TPM with PIN and External Key
  35. BitLocker To Go
  36. BitLocker Phases
  37. Requirements for Protecting the System Volume with BitLocker
  38. How to Enable the Use of BitLocker on the System Volume on Computers Without TPM
  39. How to Enable BitLocker Encryption on System Volumes
  40. How to Enable BitLocker Encryption on Data Volumes
  41. How to Manage BitLocker Keys on a Local Computer
  42. How to Manage BitLocker from the Command Line
  43. How to Recover Data Protected by BitLocker
  44. How to Disable or Remove BitLocker Drive Encryption
  45. How to Decommission a BitLocker Drive Permanently
  46. How to Prepare AD DS for BitLocker
  47. How to Configure a Data Recovery Agent
  48. How to Manage BitLocker with Group Policy
  49. The Costs of BitLocker
  50. Windows 7 Encrypting File System
  51. How to Export Personal Certificates
  52. How to Import Personal Certificates
  53. How to Grant Users Access to an Encrypted File
  54. Symbolic Links
  55. How to Create Symbolic Links
  56. How to Create Relative or Absolute Symbolic Links
  57. How to Create Symbolic Links to Shared Folders
  58. How to Use Hard Links
  59. Disk Quotas
  60. How to Configure Disk Quotas on a Single Computer
  61. How to Configure Disk Quotas from a Command Prompt
  62. How to Configure Disk Quotas by Using Group Policy Settings
  63. Disk Tools
  64. EFSDump
  65. SDelete
  66. Streams
  67. Sync
  68. MoveFile and PendMoves