Best system backup strategy: HP 15-f004dx Notebook w/ Windows 8.1

For years I have managed a small non-profit water system and used an inherited Gateway 510x desktop (Windows XP) to handle meter reading and billing. On Christmas Eve, the 13-year old motherboard died and I had to scramble to acquire replacement PC hardware and reconfigure software and historical data to get out our December 31 billing.

It was a busy week, but the billing seems to have gone out OK using the little $229 HP 15-f004dx notebook I bought as a replacement for the Gateway.

Now that the new system is operational and our application software and historical data is installed, I would like to implement a periodic backup system adequate for our operations. Basically, our operations are that the system is used only once per month to do the monthly meter reading and billing, and about a half-dozen historical data files are updated.

On our old PC, after our operating system and software configuration was stable I made an initial hard disk image using Acronis, and updated only the application data files monthly to a USB flash drive. Our old version of Acronis does not work on Windows 8.1 and there are mixed reviews about Acronis on Windows 8.1.

Are the "free" backup applications provided with HP and Windows 8.1 adequate to enable: 1) creation of a reliable disk image; 2) creation of a reliable rescue boot media; and 3) simple system restoration when required?

Any suggestions or comments are appreciated. Thanks!

 

Not sure what HP provides but you can do these things with tools built into windows 8.1. I personally use the free version of Marcium Reflect to create backup images and rescue boot media. This program works great but you can also do the same thing with windows backup tools. "Create a recovery drive" and "system backup image" are options built into Windows 8.1.

 

In addition to system backup, I would backup the actual important data. Copy all the important files to an usb drive. If the computer is connected to internet, then you could also backup files to the cloud or ftp them to another computer.

Even the best local backup will not be enough if a fire burns down the house and your backup media along the computer.

 

Thankyou for the suggestions, IronShiek and KLF.

I ended up downloading the free version of EaseUS instead of Marcium Reflect, and made a boot DVD and backup image of all partitions on the 500GB hard disk with EaseUS. EaseUS had issues with the 2 unmapped hidden HP partitions and had to image those sector-by-sector.

Also, because HP used a Western Digital hard disk in the HP 15 laptop, I was able to download and install the free WD version of Acronis. I also made boot media and a hard disk image with Acronis, which appeared to be similar in performance to EaseUS but without the unmapped partition complaint.

I think that because of my familiarity with Acronis, I will use Acronis as the backup system. I decided not to use the built-in Windows backup and rescue media because Microsoft had made it so obscure in the Windows 8.1 user interface.

Thanks again for your suggestions.

 

I would either pay for automatic cloud based backup knowing everything is safe and sound and all hands off, or build myself a FreeNAS box and have it mirror the system with redundant HDD's.

Putting the data on a HDD, Disk, etc is not a true "backup".

For important coroprate level information you should have a copy in another geographic location amonst other things and have some sort of DR plan.

If this is all non profit and you cant justify any major spending, I would maybe just clone my disk once a week or something and keep that disk in another location, keep a rotation of 2 disks so you have one in a safe spot and one to use at all times. Some of the could backup stuff is free or really cheap depending on what your data size is. Even something like dropbox or Microsofts free storage solution can hold several gigabytes of data for you safe and sound.

 

Good suggestions, thanks.