What are you trying to backup, your entire PC? Are you wanting to backup on a regular basis? What version of Windows are you running? How much data are you backing up? Are there multiple partitions, e.g. C drive, D drive, etc?
It just should be the normal Automatic Windows Maintenance, scheduled to back-up new or changed files since the last back-up every month.
Using Windows 10,
Drive C only,
showing there's 234 GB free of 297 GB
Haven't been able to carry out a back-up since before Xmas as it's taking way too much time and far too many CD's - thinking of buying an external hard drive. ?!
I'll try to break this down, but to some degree I'm guessing since I can't see your system. First, I highly suggest you backup more than once a month. Here's a couple options to choose from:
Cloud Backup:
You might want to consider using a service like Google One. If you have a Gmail account, then you already have Google Drive. Google One is the paid version of Google Drive. Google Drive gives you 15 GB of storage for free and Google One allows you to pay for additional space. You can download Google Backup that runs on your PC and will keep your PC backed up to your Google account anytime it connects to the web. This will keep you always backed up. Here's some of the plans that should work for you. Disclaimer, I don't work for Google and I am in no way connected to them. There are other services out there that are similar, this is just one. Others include Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.
External Hard Drive Backup:
If you don't want to go the cloud route, I understand. However, I still suggest you backup more often than monthly. To do this effectively given your PC's size, I suggest an external hard drive. I'd probably suggest one that is at least 1 TB in size to give you plenty of space. You can probably get one of these for around $100. You can get either a 3.5" or if you want a small compact one, the 2.5" are just fine too. I find the Western Digital My Book to be good and not expensive. However, there are plenty of good brands out there.
The reason I suggest switching to an external hard drive if you aren't going to backup to the cloud is because of the size of your backups. Again, I'm guessing here, but based on the numbers you gave me, you're using 64 GB of your hard drive. Automatic Backup isn't backing all of that up, it only backs up your libraries, desktop, contacts, favorites, and any folders you specified. I'm not sure how much of that 64 GB is included in that, but I'm guessing roughly 30 GB. Automatic Backup also only backs up what's changed since it last backed up. I have no clue how much you change on a regular basis, but you're only backing up once a month, so let's be conservative and say 5 GB. A CD only holds about 675 MB. This means 5 GB of changes is 7.5 (8) CDs. You said you were on your 9th CD, so I'm guessing your changing more than 5 GB a month. As you can see, backing up once a month using CDs, just isn't a good option given file sizes today.
Automatic Backup will backup on a schedule so you can leave the external hard drive plugged in and it will run according to the schedule as long as your PC is on. However, if you disconnect the external hard drive and only connect it to run Automatic Backup when you want to, I highly suggest you assign a drive letter to the external hard drive. This way every time you plug it in, it's drive K for example. This allows you to assign Automatic Backup to backup to drive K. If you don't assign a drive letter, you might plug it in today and it's drive E. However, in two weeks you plug it in and it's drive F because you have a USB flash drive plugged in that's been assigned to drive E. So assign it to a letter lower in the alphabet, this way you don't have any conflicts.
I also suggest you start a new Automatic Backup on the external hard drive and shred the discs. This way everything is all in one place if you have to restore something. Your first new backup will take some time, but after that it will take seconds to minutes.
DVD-R Disc Backup:
If you want to stick to discs, you could switch to DVD-Rs. They hold about 4.4 GB, so you'll fit more on a disc. However, I highly suggest you stop using disc backups. It's an outdated way of handling backups.
Cloud Sync vs. Automatic Backup Versioning:
Something else you should know is the difference between using Cloud and the Windows Automatic Update.
A service like Google Drive or Google One syncs the folders you tell it to and keeps the latest copy. Some of the Cloud services have options where they will also save versions of your documents each time it syncs them. This means you might be able to go back 3 months and look at an older version of a document.
Windows Automatic Update keeps all versions of your documents it backs up for the specified time you tell it. Also, in your case it keeps them forever, because it can't delete them from a CD-R. This is why I suggest a larger size external hard drive. Since it keeps everything, it will fill up. However, with the external hard drive, you can clean-out older versions freeing up space on the external hard drive.
There's nothing wrong with either of these approaches, it's a matter of what works best for you.
Hope that helps, although I realize that's a lot to digest. Let me know if you have any questions.
Good Luck,
