In search of free backup software

Few months back I lost all my favorites in Microsoft Edge. Some great folks here recommended I try a program called Recuva from the same folks that make Malwarebytes. Although I tried the program I was never able to recover my favorites file. So, I've learned my lesson and would like to find a fairly decent free backup program. I'm just starting a work at home business, I just can't risk not having a backup program any longer!

Just to "cya" myself, I'd like some tips on best options for doing backups to memory sticks, nas, or even cloud options. To further cover my bases, I'd also like to apply this to doing restore points for Windows as well.

jayv2251 said:

Few months back I lost all my favorites in Microsoft Edge. Some great folks here recommended I try a program called Recuva from the same folks that make Malwarebytes. Although I tried the program I was never able to recover my favorites file. So, I've learned my lesson and would like to find a fairly decent free backup program. I'm just starting a work at home business, I just can't risk not having a backup program any longer!

Just to "cya" myself, I'd like some tips on best options for doing backups to memory sticks, nas, or even cloud options. To further cover my bases, I'd also like to apply this to doing restore points for Windows as well.

+1 for Macrium Reflect Free

There are several commercial programs with free versions. They all seem to do the job. Aomei backupper, macrium, paragon backup and recovery, easeus,etc.

Ther are some differences in functionality and ease of use. Depends on your preference. Windows system imaging is included in win10 and is also good.

You mentioned loosing your edge favorites......same thing happened to me a while back.......

I found this small FREE program that has since served me well dealing with Edge Favorites, makes it easy to backup them up and restore them to other systems or get them back after a fresh install......Manage Edge Favorites

It's been 16 years since I took my A+ course so I could some help deciding which type of backups I should be doing. To begin with, I can really see the need to be doing restore point more often. Since I'm just starting out with my work at home job, my budget is really tight. The only affordable, external storage space would be an USB flash drive. How large is a typical restore point?

As for doing the backups and where to store them is my next concern. I will admit I'm not sure which route is best for me. I don't want to be spending money on the wrong equipment. As of right now, if my system fatally crashed, the only resource for me is the Windows 10 iso I made back in July last year. I assume a full backup of my entire system would be rather large. I know backups compress the data being store, but still I have 200G used as I just checked via file explorer. Microsoft offers 5g with OneDrive, and Google offers 15G via Drive. Would I be safe in saying that besides restore points I should only be concerned about backing up personal data, like Favorites, Quckbooks files, any Office files not currently synced with OneDrive. What are my alternatives, until I can either build or buy a nas that I can attach to my router?