Every few weeks someone sends me a laptop with a clicking hard disk and asks if the photos can be recovered. Sometimes yes, for Rs. 20,000–60,000 at a data recovery lab. Usually no. The person always says the same thing: "I was going to back it up." Here is the version of "going to" that takes an hour.

The rule: 3-2-1

Three copies of anything important, on two different kinds of storage, with one copy somewhere else (not in the same house). Your laptop counts as one. You need two more, and one must be off-site — the cloud is the easy off-site copy.

Photos on your phone: Google Photos or iCloud

Install Google Photos (Android or iPhone), sign in, turn on Backup. Set it to Wi-Fi only. 15 GB is free; the 100 GB plan is around Rs. 650 a month and is the best money most families can spend. On iPhone, iCloud Photos does the same — 5 GB free, 50 GB for a similar price. Once it says "Backup complete", losing the phone means losing nothing.

Documents on the computer: one folder, synced

Do not try to back up "everything". Make one folder — Documents — and put everything that matters in it: scans of NIC and passport, certificates, tax files, the kids' school stuff, work files. Then sync that one folder:

  • Google Drive for desktop — free 15 GB shared with Photos and Gmail
  • OneDrive — built into Windows, 5 GB free, 100 GB with any Microsoft 365 plan

Once installed, the folder simply lives in both places. Save a file, it is in the cloud within a minute. Delete by accident, restore from the web version's "Trash" for 30 days.

The second local copy: an external drive

A 1 TB external hard disk costs about Rs. 18,000–22,000; a 2 TB one a little more. On Windows, Settings → Update & Security → Backup → "Add a drive" → File History does automatic versioned backups every hour when the drive is plugged in. On Mac, Time Machine does the same. Plug it in once a week while you have tea. Keep it in a drawer, not next to the laptop — a spilled cup or a thief takes both otherwise.

What people forget to back up

  • WhatsApp — its own backup setting, see my WhatsApp guide
  • Browser passwords — use a password manager (Bitwarden, free) instead of "remember me"
  • Two-factor codes — if the authenticator app is only on the phone and the phone dies, you are locked out of everything. Save the backup codes in your Documents folder.
  • Email — Gmail is already in the cloud, but the old POP3 account from your ISP is only on the PC. Export it or forward it.
  • Photos on old phones in the drawer — charge them, back them up, then let them go.

Test it once

A backup nobody has restored from is a hope, not a backup. Open Google Photos on the web and confirm the pictures are there. Open the external drive and open one file. Two minutes, and now you actually know.

Ransomware and the one thing the cloud does not protect against

If malware encrypts your files, the synced cloud copy gets encrypted too — sync is not a backup against yourself. That is why the external drive matters: it is offline most of the time. Keep it that way.

Business with a server, a POS, or years of accounts data? That needs automated, tested, off-site backups — one of the first things I set up in server administration.