Backup Basics

• The term "backup" can refer to any method of data archiving, whether it's individual files to entire hard drive volumes. A disk image is a type of backup.
  
  

Disk Image Basics

• A disk image is the entire contents of a particular storage device that is in or attached to your computer. Therefore, a disk image can require a substantially larger amount of space than backing up some files and folders.
  
  

Backup Software

• Windows XP, Vista Home Basic, and Vista Home Premium have backup software that can archive files and folders. The more expensive versions of Vista and all versions of Windows 7 have built-in software that includes drive image creation.
  
  

Drive Image Management

• Since a drive image can be extremely large, you usually need to put it on a separate local storage device. Individual files and folders, meanwhile, can be small enough to archive through an Internet-based service such as Mozy or IDrive.
  
  

Incremental Backups

• Modern disk image managers allow you to make "incremental" image backups, which update parts of the image rather than having to create a whole new one. This method gives you similar functionality to backing up individual files and folders.