What's an economical way to backup your computer?

Everyone should have a backup plan when it comes to computer data storage, but finding the right solution isn’t as easy as just clicking a mouse.

If you’re looking for a reliable and economical method, your best bet is to buy an external hard drive that’s the same size (or bigger) than your PC’s internal drive and to use the free backup software that is built into the Windows or Macintosh operating system.

If you do some Windows shopping at Amazon, it’s hard to find one that’s smaller than 1 terabyte, but that’s OK.

A Western Digital 1TB Elements portable external hard drive, for example, will set you back $52.99, a fair price for keeping your data safe. You can also use a flash drive, if you have one that’s big enough.

Don’t try to use these backup programs with a drive that’s not at least as big as your internal drive. You may be using only 80 gigabytes of a 500-gigabyte hard drive, but the software will choke if you give it a 32-gigabyte flash drive to use for a backup.

Once you plug the drive into your computer, follow these instructions to get a backup started:

From the Windows search bar (next to the start button), type Backup and then choose Backup Settings.

At the top of the settings screen, you’ll see “Back Up Using File History” and a big “+” icon to add a drive.

Click the “+” and you’ll see a list of available hard drives to back up your files. Choose the hard drive you just connected and then you’ll see an on/off switch for the file history backup.

There’s also a link there to customize the backup, which can be done as often as you like, from every 15 minutes to once a day.

If you have a Mac, open System Preferences from the Apple menu and then open Time Machine. You’ll see a button to select a backup disk. Click it and you’ll see a list of the available volumes your Mac can use for the backup.

Choose your drive and then select “use disk,” and you’re all set.

Now you can relax a little knowing your files will be copied to another drive.

Both Windows and Mac OS will let you back up your files to multiple disks. Simply connect another drive and follow the same directions. If you have two drives selected, you’ll get backups on both.

Also, consider buying an external drive or a large flash drive just to keep a backup copy of your digital photos.