Look though your hard drive and figure what are your most essential files. For me, it would be key fonts used for commercial purpopes, accounts, invoices, most important work documents and, probably, desktop photos. There's little else. As these files are relatively small, they could easily be stored online or even a removable USB drive. However, you don't need an extensive backup application to get these files backed up or restored.

FBackup 4.1 is a free tool that enables you to create various backup sets that can include certain folders and other information. Best of all, it pre-selects folders such as your 'My Pictures' and email, so just select these, add to your set, choose a destination and go. You can schedule your backup, so it may run at the end of every working week. The only thing you can't do is backup online, which would be useful within any backup tool. As we all have fast broadband and some server space, it makes more sense to backup online, than to an external drive.

FBackup link.

26 Mar 2009