Windows 8 has a very nice feature called File History. The File History feature in Windows 8 keeps a backup copy of all your files that are in your libraries, contacts, favorites, and on your desktop folders. It not only saves the backup of files but their different versions. Suppose you create a document yesterday and then edit it today, then the File History would save both the versions. If the originals are lost, get corrupted, or deleted, then you can restore all of them, including the different versions of your files from a specific point in time. File History is not enabled by default in Windows 8, but you can turn it on easily. Here is how :
Press Windows Logo Key + X when on the Start Screen. Select Control Panel from the menu that appears, to open Control Panel.
In the Control Panel, click on System and Security and then on File History. In the File History window, you would see a drive already selected. This is the drive where the backup files would be kept. You can click on the Turn On button to turn on the File History.
But if you want to choose a different drive, then you can click on the Change drive link on the left-side menu. This would show you a list of available drives that you can use for File History. You can even add a network drive if you intend to save file backups to a network drive. Choosing a network drive is better, as it would be safe even in case of a local system crash. Select a drive from the list and click
You can also customize how the File History works by clicking on the Advanced Settings on the left-side menu. The settings are for how often the files are saved, how much space to be used, and options for saving the versions. To help avoid filling up your File History drive too fast, you can set how often files are copies and how long older versions of your files are kept. If you do not have specific requirements and your File History drive is large enough, then it is recommended that you leave the default settings untouched.
You should note that File History only saves your personal files located inside your libraries, contacts, favorites, and on your desktop folders. If you want to save files in some other folders, you can create a new library and add the folders containing those files to that library.