THE FIVE BEST THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH A BIG USB STICK

1 Keep your files and photos secure

File History, which is built into Windows 8 and later, lets you use USB storage to keep a running backup of your documents, photos, videos and more. Although it won’t back up your Windows system files (see page 52 for that), File History is a great set-and-forget option for securing your most precious files, which are copied to a connected USB stick every time they change.

The clever thing about File History is that rather than just backing up your files once then overwriting them the next time they change, it also keeps historical versions. So if you’ve been working on several drafts of your memoirs and realise you’ve gone astray, you can revert not only to the previous version, but all versions before that. Depending on the capacity of your USB stick, that might mean you can go back to the very first version.

If you set up File History in the way we explain below, it will start deleting the oldest versions of your files only when your USB storage is full. So, this is one instance where buying the largest stick you can afford will pay dividends. You also need to keep your USB stick plugged in at all times to capture every version.

If you haven’t yet bought a stick, consider something like the compact SanDisk Ultra Fit. The 256GB version costs around £25 (www.snipca.com/39128).

Create a USB backup

Get started by plugging in your USB stick and pressing the Windows key+I to open Settings. Click ‘Update & Security’, followed by Backup, then click the slider