Why Does My Computer Backup Take so Long?

There are several reasons that your backup may run slow. It is usually because you are not familiar with the proper way to backup your files. If you are a novice computer operator, you should not attempt to backup your files without first going to your operating system website and follow the tutorial to make sure you get it right and do not try to backup the wrong files. You should not backup the entire hard drive. You do not need to backup the operating system or any applications that you have the CD. You will want to save the files you have created while using that application if you need them later, such as Excel files or Power Point presentations you need for work or just want for future reference.

If your have files on your computer that are changed regularly, you will want to back them up whenever changes are made, but you only have to backup the file that was changed, not all the other files that are important but already backed up.

If you use Windows and do not have a built-in backup program, whether installed with your operating system or as an additional task on the operating system CD, you can go to Microsoft.com, download a backup utility, and watch a tutorial. There is also a wizard included in the backup utility to help you perform this task.

Many people are tempted when using the wizard to check the box that will backup all information on this computer. This is not necessary and it will take a long time to complete. If you need every application and file on the computer, it can create an enormous file.

The other option is to backup either just your My Documents and Settings or every user's Documents and Settings if it is a shared computer, like a family computer. This will save the My Documents files, desktop settings, cookies and favorites menu. This will include your email messages, contacts folder and personal settings in the registry. This option should only take about 10 minutes each time if done on a regular basis if you had 5 GB of data, which most people do not have.

The final option is to check the box that lets you check which specific files you want to backup. If other records have not changed, there is no need to back them up again. You can place the files that have changed in a place that is easy for you to locate and check only those files. This will make your backup go much faster.

Next, you choose a name for the backup file and a place to store it. Do not store your backup file on the same partition of the hard drive that you are backing up. The Windows backup utility will not store your backup on a CD-RW. You can copy or move your photo and video files on a CD-RW for safekeeping. This will keep your backup from taking so long because photos take a lot of room. You can store it on a separate hard drive, a different partition of the same hard drive or an external drive.

You can set your backup to run automatically by clicking the advance tab on the finish wizard page. If you set it to run when you are not using the computer, make sure you leave your computer running when you have it scheduled. You can check and it will run in the background without you noticing while you run another application thanks to a program, volume shadow copy, which will back up files while you are using them. You can run this application manually but you need to do it regularly. This will prevent it from taking so long each time.