[ryrhino]

Hello,

I have been using AOMEI Backupper free edition. I have been doing weekly differental disk backups. I have done one system back up as well. I backed up to an external hard drive.

If doing a new system backup using that software should I do a full system backup or would a differental system backup do the same? The software offers incremental and differental backups for system. I am trying to understand why those are offered for system backups. I thought system backups should always be full backups. How often would you suggest doing full system backups?

Also would you use Backerupper to backup folders/files or would you sync them or copy them to external hard drive by copy/paste or drag and drop? I know the choice is mine just trying to get others opinions.

I want to make system restoring as simple as possible should the need ever arise.
I only want to use free software.

Thanks for your help.

[Appzalien]

A system backup backs up your system files only to restore the system if it becomes corrupted. A full backup backs up the system and programs installed as well as saved data. After you have done the initial first full backup and several months of incremental/differential backups you can do a full backup again and then delete the older backups. A full backup takes up a lot of room that's why they offer the smaller update backups to keep the space use down. Once you make a new full backup just save the older backup data for a short period then you can delete it.