Backing up files is absolutely vital to any computer owner, whether your device is used for commercial business, school use, medical use, or just average home use. Imagine with me for a second that you have a hardware failure, a fire happens in your building, or your computer is stolen while you’re on a business trip. Is there a way to access your files now? Do you have them stored in several different places to ensure that your business will not crash due to data loss or your precious photos will not disappear because there is no option for file recovery?
100% of hard drives will fail eventually.
According to Quantum RBS Inc., nearly 70% of businesses have experienced data loss. Primary causes for data loss include:
-78% Hardware or system malfunction
-11% Human error
-7% Software corruption or program malfunction
-2% Computer viruses
-1% Natural disasters
-1% Other
If you have anything of value saved on your device, you need to back up your files. There are data recovery procedures, but many times there is no way to help recover files if there has been no proper backup done.
The 3-2-1 rule:
You should have at least 3 total copies of your data, 2 of which are stored locally but on different media, and at least 1 copy offsite.
So, how can you backup files locally and offsite?
Backing up locally to an external hard drive or flash drive:
Buy an external hard drive (we recommend Western Digital), and either copy and paste your files over to the external drive or use a software to do a back up onto an external drive for you, such as Cobian Backup. If you decide to use a software, then you can set up a schedule and tell it exactly which files to copy.
Cloud-based backup (Offsite backup):
With a cloud backup you can access your files from anywhere and there is no physical thing that can be lost, stolen, hacked or broken. To take all of the files from an external drive you have and duplicate it onto the cloud, you can use a free program such as Google Drive Insync to replicate all those files so that they are safe. Or you could use a paid program such as Carbonite. Carbonite does a live backup of your files. You tell them what you want backed up and they will synchronize that over the internet almost instantaneously as long as you are connected to wifi. This is a convenient way if you do not want to remember to backup your files every couple of weeks. One great thing about Carbonite as well is that they keep your files for up to 30 days after being deleted, just in case you need to recover something.
Another method that we recommend is making an image of your operating system (this can be stored locally or offsite):
This will backup all of your files and your operating system, so if there is a problem with the operating system then you can roll back to the last update and not lose your programs. The cheaper option of doing this is by using Windows backups which are built into each Windows OS. We recommend Acronis True Image, which makes a full replication of your operating system and your files.
There are hundreds of different backup solutions out there, and if you need specific answers for what method is best, don't hesitate to call the shop and ask us about it. No matter what method you use, we just want you to know how important it is to backup your data, so that if anything does happen the chances of recovering your files is much higher.
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