The best backup is one that works and allows you to recover the latest updates that you have made. However, creating the best backup can be a very time-consuming process. In order to reduce the amount of time to create backups, it is important to be aware of what actually changes on your computer each day.
Strategy #1 - (Safest, but Time Consuming)
Create a full backup of your entire hard drive each week and then create differential backups throughout the week to copy the files that have changed to your backup drive. Note that your backup drive should either be an external drive or an online drive (which can be expensive depending on how much data is backed up). You may wish to have your full backup moved to an off-site location before creating a new full backup. This allows you to recover files further back than one week. The only problem with this strategy is that it is a lot of trouble and you need multiple external drives unless the full backup is being pushed over the Internet to online storage.
Strategy #2 - (Not As Safe, but More Convenient For A Small Business or Homeowner)
This is how I create backups, which is more convenient and conceivably less expensive.
First, Acronis TrueImage (now called Acronis Cyber Protect) is used to create a full backup of the hard drive in a folder on an external hard drive called "Hard Drive Images". The hard drive images are re-created once per month to pick up on changes made to the operating system, such as the installation of Windows updates. Acronis can name backup files however you like in the "Settings" for scheduled backups.
Second, I also keep folders on the external hard drive, for each computer to be backed up, under "Acronis Backups\Source Computer" name. Each computer name folder stores weekly backup images of Documents and Downloads. The backup filenames are determined by the settings within Acronis for scheduled backups.
Acronis TrueImage is used once per week to backup the Documents and Download folders using the "Folders" backup type. It's possible to retain several backups so that a file can be recovered from a previous week(s) backup if it is accidentally deleted. Acronis allows incremental and differential backups to be created, but I find that it most helpful for each weekly backup to be a complete "full" backup. That way, it isn't necessary to restore from multiple files if you have missing data. If your backup needs are more demanding, you might want to create an incremental or differential backup at the end of each day.
I also use WinZip to create zip files of selected project folders. The zip files are saved to C:\Temp\Zipped Backups. Each zip file is named according to what it contains and suffixed with the date in YYYYMMDD format. Folders that contain important data are backed up frequently to a zip file, immediately after being updated. Then, the zip file is copied from C:\Temp\Zipped Backups to a corresponding folder on an external drive, such as F:\Temp\Zipped Backups.
I create zip files of development projects and websites using the same strategy. A new zip file is created at the time a particular project is updated, and then it is copied to an external drive. For some backups, it is only necessary to keep the most recent copy.
Third, I use an app called "MailBird", which is a local mail client, to gather email from several different email accounts. WinZip can be used to backup the folder containing the MailBird email messages.
The folder "C:\Users\Bill\AppData\Local\Mailbird" and its subfolders can be zipped into a single file which can be copied to an external backup device. The MailBird application should be closed at the time of copying.
Note: This folder may be hidden. You may need to use the View feature in Windows Explorer to un-hide the folder.
Fourth, the Windows Registry is backed up periodically. Even though, System Restore may be used to restore the operating system to a point in time before a problem occurred, I've found that occasionally System Restore doesn't work. In this event, a backup of the Windows Registry from a point in time when everything was working fine is extremely valuable. To create such a backup, click the Start Button, then All Program / Accessories and finally "Command Prompt". A black window will open. Type "regedit" and press the <Enter> key. Answer "Y" to the User Account Control prompt. The Registry Editor will open. With the highlight on "Computer", perform an export to C:\Temp\Windows Registry and name the file something like "WindowsRegistry_YYYYMMDD.reg". In the event, your system is malfunctioning extremely badly because you uninstalled a program you shouldn't have, double-click the .reg file and your Windows Registry keys will be restored. Of course, this doesn't reactivate an uninstalled application, but should make your computer operational to the point where the application can be reinstalled. The .Reg files can be periodically copied to an external drive also.