Here is an uncomfortable question: if your laptop was stolen tonight — a scenario South Africans do not need explained — what would you actually lose? For most homes the honest answer is every family photo since 2015, the tax documents, and the only copy of things that cannot be recreated at any price.
Backups feel like admin until the day they are the only thing that matters. The good news: a bulletproof home setup is genuinely cheap and takes one afternoon.
The 3-2-1 Rule in Plain Language
The industry standard, translated:
- 3 copies of anything you care about (the original plus two backups),
- 2 different types of storage (so one technology failing does not take both),
- 1 copy off-site (so a burglary, fire or lightning strike cannot reach everything at once).
The off-site copy is the one South Africans skip — and the one that matters most here, because theft takes the laptop AND the drive in the same bag.
Copy 2: The External Drive
A 1–2TB external SSD or hard drive covers most families' entire photo and document history. Set Windows File History or macOS Time Machine to run automatically when it is plugged in — scheduled, not "when I remember" — and let it version your files so yesterday's accidental overwrite is recoverable, not just yesterday's theft. Drives live in the storage section; our SSD vs HDD guide settles which type suits you.
Copy 3: The Off-Site Copy
Two honest options:
Cloud (easiest)
Google One, OneDrive or iCloud at the ~200GB–2TB tiers cost less monthly than a takeaway coffee and back up phones automatically — which matters, since your phone holds the newest, least-backed-up photos in the house. Uploads are slow on SA connections the first time; let it run overnight for a week and forget it.
The Rotating Drive (cheapest)
Two external drives: one at home, one at work or a relative's house, swapped monthly. Old-school, zero subscription, and completely immune to ransomware and account hacks. The discipline is the product.
What About Ransomware?
A backup drive permanently plugged in can be encrypted along with the PC. The fixes are simple: unplug the drive between backups, use cloud versioning (both major clouds keep file history), or keep that rotating off-site drive. One disconnected copy defeats the entire attack class.
The Under-R2,500 Family Setup
- 1TB external drive with automated File History — the daily safety net.
- Cloud tier covering both parents' phones — the photo pipeline.
- A yearly "restore test": open a backup and actually retrieve a file. A backup you have never restored from is a hope, not a plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is OneDrive/Google Drive sync the same as a backup?
Not quite — sync mirrors deletions and mistakes instantly to the copy. It becomes backup-like only with versioning enabled, and it still fails the "2 types of storage" test alone. Use it as one leg of 3-2-1, not the whole plan.
SSD or hard drive for backups?
Hard drives give the most gigabytes per rand and are fine for a drive that sits on a shelf. External SSDs cost more but shrug off drops and are faster for big photo libraries. For rotating off-site copies, the ruggedness of SSDs is worth it.
How often should backups run?
Automatically and at least daily for the working copy — which is why scheduled tools beat manual copying. The off-site rotation: monthly is the realistic sweet spot for homes.
What actually needs backing up?
The irreplaceable: photos, documents, tax records, password manager exports. Not Windows, not applications — those reinstall. Keeping the precious folder structure tidy makes the whole system smaller and faster.
