Have you noticed that the amount of important files on your PC equipped with Windows 10 has increased exponentially, so you are looking for a solution that can keep them safe, perhaps on a disk or even in the cloud, so as not to lose them in case of unforeseen events or breakage of your devices. It seems obvious to me that you need a backup and, luckily for you, Windows 10 offers many solutions to this effect, both included “standard” and released by third parties as separate downloads.
How do you say? Can’t wait to find out how to backup Windows 10 PC to get started right away? I am happy to inform you that this is the guide for you: below, in fact, I will show you the simplest and most effective methods to secure your computer data and restore it if necessary: all without paying a single euro .
In particular, I will give you some explanations about the various types of backups that can be created and then I will show you both a solution included by default in Windows 10 (which therefore does not require the download of additional software), and some useful external programs capable of help you achieve your goal with minimal effort. Having said that, now I just have to wish you a good reading and a good backup!
Index
- Preliminary information
- How to Backup Windows 10 PC to External Hard Drive
- File history
- Manual backup
- Backup programs
- How to make full backup windows 10 pc
Preliminary information
Before catapulting yourself into the world of backup, it is good that you learn some simple concepts on what are the types of storage that the various software can exploit. The backup method conceptually simpler, but longer — and, in some ways, tiring — to put into practice, consists in performing a manual backup of the important data: in other words, it’s all about identifying the data to be backed up safe and transfer them to a separate partition or an external disk, using the most classic of copy and paste.
Alternatively, the data saving process can be automated using the utility integrated in Windows 10 or third-party software: these solutions, by exploiting some particular archiving strategies, can speed up and optimize the backup operation, in addition than to decrease the size of the resulting save file.
Another viable option involves the use of the cloud : to give you an example, Windows 10 (as well as Windows 11 ) is perfectly integrated with OneDrive and, in fact, allows you to take advantage of the Microsoft cloud service to store important files and data and update them automatically.
However, each Microsoft account only offers 5 GB of free OneDrive storage space, which can still be increased by subscribing to a subscription plan for the standalone OneDrive service (with prices starting at €2/month for 100 GB of space) or at the Microsoft 365 platform (with prices starting from €7/month for 1 TB of space and access to Microsoft 365 programs and/or applications).
Clearly, each of the methods listed has its strengths and weaknesses: it’s up to you to choose the one that best suits your needs and, based on this, the most useful solution for your purposes.
How to Backup Windows 10 PC to External Hard Drive
To get started, let’s see how to back up important data stored on Windows 10 directly to an external drive. Before proceeding, make sure you have a sufficiently large storage medium (if you don’t have it, you can follow my buying guide dedicated to external disks , to choose the one that best suits your case), better if formatted in NTFS ( or in exFAT , if you intend to access the files also from computers with operating systems other than Windows), connect the disk to the PC and make sure that it is correctly recognized by Windows.
File history
The first tool I want to tell you about is File History : it is the integrated solution in Windows 10 thanks to which it is possible to create and keep updated backups of your personal files in a completely automatic way.
In fact, in the first configuration phase, Chronology File makes a complete copy of the data contained in the selected folders, directly on the external disk; the data is updated automatically, every time a file being backed up is modified (if the external disk is connected), or every time the backup medium is connected to the computer.
To perform a backup with File History, right- click on the Start button located at the bottom left (the one with the Windows flag icon), select the Settings item from the menu that opens and click on the Update and Security , residing in the screen that appears on the desktop.
Subsequently, click on the Backup item (on the side), press the [+] button located next to the wording Add a unit and select the rescue disk (i.e. the external medium) from the list that appears on the screen.
The game is practically done: from now on, Windows will create at regular intervals — and in a completely automatic way — an incremental backup of the most important folders of the user profile (e.g. Downloads , Desktop , Favorites , Pictures , Camera Roll , Videos and so on) on the chosen drive. For safety, I recommend that you start the initial backup manually by clicking on the More options item and then pressing the button called Run backup now .
The More options screen also allows you to fine-tune the behavior of File History: from there, you can view the size of the current backup, decide how often to autosave, how long to keep old backups, add or remove save folders or, again, change the storage disk.
In case of second thoughts, you can always disable the creation of the automatic Windows backup by moving the lever corresponding to the File History item (resident in the Settings> Update and security> Windows 10 Backup screen) to Disabled .
Manual backup
Alternatively, you can manually copy the files to be kept on the external disk supplied to you, using the copy paste or the Send to function of Windows. However, keep in mind that, by doing so, the changes made to the files on Windows 10 will not be automatically applied to the data previously backed up, unless you manually copy the modified files and/or folders.
Having clarified this, let’s see together how to proceed. To get started, open Windows File Explorer (if needed) and locate the file or folder you want to copy; then right-click on its icon , select the item Send to from the context menu that opens and click on the name of the backup disk, in order to start the transfer.
If you need to transfer a large number of files, I advise you to copy or move them into a single folder and transfer it to the storage disk, as I have illustrated above.
Backup programs
If you intend to take the path of automatic backups but you think that File History is not for you, it will be convenient for you to know that there are numerous third-party solutions , free and not, which allow you to save the data stored on your computer to an external disk and to keep the backup copies updated, in a completely automatic way.
Such software, by exploiting some particular strategies, can optimize the data transfer operation, decrease the size of the resulting backup file and, consequently, speed up the entire procedure. Below I list the most common backup techniques used by the software in question.
- Full backup– as the name suggests, this is a complete copy of the files and folders on the chosen device, as is and without any exclusions. It is a type of backup that is easy to manage, but takes a long time to create.
- Incremental backup– in this type of backup only the files created and modified since the last backup performed are stored, leaving the others unchanged. Consequently, before performing an incremental backup, you need to create a full one. This is a solution that generates small files but requires the latest full backup and all previous incremental backups to restore.
- Synthetic full backup– it is identical to the incremental backup, but “incorporates” its files within the full backup from which it originates. It’s convenient and safe, but takes longer to create (because of the merge operation).
- Differential backup– very similar to incremental backup, it stores files and folders created since the last full backup, leaving everything else intact. Consequently, before creating a differential backup you need to create at least one full backup. This type of solution is a little more important, in terms of space, than the incremental backup, but simpler in terms of recovery: to perform the latter, you need the last full backup and only the last backup differential.
For more information about the best backup programs available for Windows 10 (and not only), I invite you to take a look at the in-depth tutorial I’ve dedicated to the topic: I bet you’ll find the solution that best suits your precise needs!
How to make full backup windows 10 pc
Do you need to make a complete backup of your computer which includes, in addition to the data, also the operating system and its settings, to be easily restored in case of problems? Also in this case, I have excellent news for you: in fact, there are software designed specifically for the purpose, which allow you to copy all the data on a disk / partition within a single file, to be restored if necessary.
One of these is certainly EaseUS Todo Backup Free : it is a complete solution, which allows you to enclose the backup of entire disks or partitions within a single file, to automatically update them with an incremental or differential strategy and to restore them very easily . I point out that the EaseUS backup software is also available in a paid version, with additional functions (eg the possibility of encrypting the backups, dividing them into smaller files and sending them to the cloud); however, the features included in the free version are more than sufficient for the purposes of this guide.
Having said that, to obtain the software in question, connect to this website , click on the Download for free button located at the top and then on the item Free , residing on the page that appears later. When the download is complete, open the file obtained (e.g. ) and click on the Yes, Install now and Install Free edition buttons , in order to start downloading and installing the files necessary for the program to work.TB_Free_Installer_xxx.exe
Once the installation of EaseUS Todo Backup Free is complete, click on the Start now button , click on the Free box located in the window that appears on the screen and press the X located in the upper right corner, so as to close the latter. To immediately make the first full backup, click on the Create backup/Add backup button, click on Select contents for backup and click on the Disk icon , to indicate your wish to make a complete copy of the files on the disk/ partition.
Now, click on the Windows partition icon or, if you intend to archive the contents of all the disk partitions, put the check mark in correspondence with the word Hard Disk [X] , placed at the top; then click on the OK button , press the computer icon (identified by the wording Select the path where you want to save the backup ) and choose the folder, partition or disk in which to store the data backup file.
At this point, if you want to adjust the backup creation mode in detail, click on the Options button at the bottom left: most of the options available in the Backup Options tab (e.g. the compression level, file splitting backup into smaller files, sending the backup to an FTP server, etc.) are available only for the paid versions of the program.
The Schedule backup tab , on the other hand, allows you to automatically update the backup at regular intervals, provided that the backup folder is available or the backup disk is connected to the computer; therefore, tick the frequency of your interest (e.g. Unrepeatable , to create the backup only once, Daily , Weekly or Monthly ) and use the menus and buttons located in the panel that opens, so as to specify the time, day of the week or day of the month to perform the backup.
Subsequently, set the Backup mode drop-down menu on the backup update mode you prefer (I told you about the best-known strategies in one of the previous sections of this guide) and intervene on the items Wake up computer and run backup and Run backup all system startup if the computer is turned off , to ensure that the backup is performed even if the computer is in suspend/hibernation or when it is first turned on after the scheduling date.
Finally, if you intend to automatically delete the oldest incremental/differential backups, put the check mark next to the Enable image reserve strategy item and use the available options to specify the way to keep the oldest backups. If you are unsure what to do, leave this option unchecked (as setting the management of intermediate backups incorrectly could make it impossible to use the entire file).
If you want to restore the files contained in a previously made backup, install EaseUS Todo Backup Free again as seen above (if necessary), click on the Browse for recovery button and follow the instructions you receive on the screen to proceed. If you want to start or schedule other backup operations, click the Add backup button , located at the top left.
In addition to the solution seen above which, in my opinion, represents an excellent compromise between efficiency and ease of use, know that there are many other programs for making Windows 10 PC backups : I told you about them in detail in the my backup software guide .
If you then need to make a complete clone of the Windows PC because, for example, you are about to replace your old hard disk with a faster SSD , I urge you to carefully read my guide on how to clone a hard disk with an operating system or my specific tutorial on how to transfer the contents of a hard disk to SSD : I’m sure they will come in handy!