Hard Disk Drive Backup

The matter of data retention and HDD backups was always important, but today it is important as never before. Tens of millions of new computer viruses appear each year, and their number grows exponentially. Today any PC connected to the Internet may become infected with a malware that can damage data stored on your hard drive.

Creating a complete hard disk backup is the easiest way to ensure that all valuable documents, databases, images and applications that you work with can be easily retrieved if something happens to the original drive. In commercial enterprises, backups hold primary importance to business continuity, as downtime of servers and workstations may result in delay of production, sales and delivery.

In home environment, hard disk backup is the easiest and the most frequently used way to back up PC data. Home users don't want to take the hassle of planning optimal backup strategy and identifying data important for their activities. What they usually do is create an HDD backup as a whole, with all necessary and unnecessary information.

Two Approaches to Hard Disk Backup

There are two main technologies that can be used for the HDD backup: files-based copying and image-based (also called sector-based, drive-based, or snapshot) copying.

• Files-based backup implies that all HDD information is retrieved through the file system. It lets you create backup tasks consisting of separate files and folders and enables performing incremental backup where each execution of the task backs up only those data that appeared or changed since the previous one. The disadvantage of files-based approach is that there are system files and data that are locked by OS or not accessible on this level, and therefore can't be backed up.


• Image-based backup is creation of a complete HDD snapshot which doesn't query the file system and exploits drive sectors directly on a physical level. This technology allows creating backups of operating system, drive boot records and other data. Through drive imaging you can back up the entire hard drive, or even clone your HDD – but it requires a lot of disk space and works relatively slowly.

Handy Backup supports both approaches and has a number of advantageous features that automate all backup-related operations, such as compression, encryption, scheduling, and other. To learn more, please see Handy Backup features list.

Backup your HDD with Handy Backup and protect your data from all risks!