The technique described in this article provides an effective solution, at minimum cost, in a home environment where there are two or more computers, to protecting against equipment failure and to some degree theft. This approach does not provide protection if both computers are stolen or if there is a major catastrophy such as a fire. The approach requires that both computers are connected via a fixed or wireless network (LAN).
The technique uses spare disk space on each computer to store backups of information on the other computer(s).
Create a folder on each of the two computers that will be used to hold the backups of the other computer, called for example C:\Backups_of_others\. You need to share the folder so that it can be accessed from the other computer via the network. To do this In Windows, run Windows Explorer, right-click on the folder and select 'Sharing and Security'. Check the 'Share this folder' check box and type in in a share name such as 'Backups'. You will need to enable permissions and security on the folder so that the normal user of the other computer has the rights to create and write files.
Once the shares are established on each computer, you should map a network drive on each computer (eg. N:) to point to the backups folder on the other. Then you are ready to go. You can use Windows Backup or any other backup solution to backup important files from each computer to the mapped network drive. SoftSwift's Enhanced Windows Backup is a good simple option and is free. With Enhanced Windows Backup, the backups can be automated and can even delete old backups automatically to reduce disk space usage.
N.B. make sure that none of the backup jobs on either computer include the C:\Backups_of_Others\ folder, otherwise you will be backing up backups un-necessarily and you will use up disk space very quickly.
