The Importance of Backing Up

We all know we should do it.  Backing up our computers, our tablets, and our phones.  At least we’ve heard about it and thought, “Is that something I should be doing?” 

While the answer is YES, there are a couple of reasons and various ways to back up our data.  Let’s start with the reasons:

• Data Recovery – Many of us have been in the situation where our device is starting to fail, or worse, has already failed, and we can’t get it to turn back on or boot up.  It’s a very scary feeling.  Good thing you’ve got everything backed up, right?  You did back it up, didn’t you?  I know–easier said than done.  I’ll get into how to back up in a moment, but for now, let’s just agree that when our old computer or phone conks out, it’s nice to restore all of our information onto our new device so we can continue with as little interruption as possible.  Nobody wants to re-enter 1500 contacts back in, or miss crucial  appointments that were on our calendar.  We also may have photos, or important documents that we need to save and have forever.  Having them all copied on an external drive can make life easier should you need to restore them.

 

• Creating More Storage Space – A good backup drive is a convenient way to store old or unused files that you don’t want taking up room on your computer.  These may be a group of photos that you know you don’t want to access regularly, but can’t quite depart with yet; music that you purchased or uploaded, but no longer have the yearning to listen to; papers you wrote back in school or at an old job; etc.  Offloading these to an external hard drive will keep them safe and free up your computer.  (Note:  I always prefer to have at least 2 copies of my data somewhere.  So if you do decide to offload files to an external hard drive, consider copying those same files to an additional backup drive in case something happens to the original backup.)

Now let’s explore different ways to back up:

• External Hard Drive – These drives are often the size of a book or a deck of cards and can hold oodles of data.  There are also the tiny “thumb drives” or “USB sticks” as they’re sometimes called.  As the amount of storage in them has gone up, the prices have come down.  For instance, you can buy a 1TB hard drive on Amazon for under $50.  Once you have one of these drives, simply plug it into your computer via the USB port and get started.  You can either drag and drop selected files onto the drive, or set up an automatic backup program on your computer.  Both Mac and Windows computers have such programs that will thoroughly back up all of your files as often as you like, without you having to remember.

 

• Cloud Backup – “The Cloud,” as it’s sometimes called, confuses many people as to what it really is. While the imagery we may think of would have it up in the air somewhere, it's actually firmly on the ground.  Think of it as a larger-storage computer (called a server) that is located somewhere else.  You can log into it from your computer, tablet, or phone through the internet.  In reality, there isn’t one single cloud.  There are a plethora.  Many different tech companies offer cloud services:  Apple’s iCloud, Google Drive, Microsoft’s One Drive, to name a few.  In addition, each company has many such servers comprising its cloud services, due to the number of people who log into them and the need to redundantly back them up many times over.  I mean, who wants to back up their computer to iCloud, only to learn that Apple lost their data?  One of the greatest benefits of using cloud services is that, in addition to being a backup solution, the cloud can sync all that information to each one of your devices.  This is how you are able to see your phone's photos on your computer and tablet.

So which way should you go?  External hard drive or cloud backup?  My recommendation is to do at least one of them, if not both.  They both have different strengths.  For example, with an external hard drive, you can perform backups that will allow you to recover your data from any point in time.  This is particularly helpful if a virus infects and corrupts your files.  You can restore your system to a date before the infection.  With a cloud backup, your data is synced among all of your devices, and it’s also stored off site.  Meaning, should you have a fire at home that destroys your computer and external hard drive, you’ll still have a backup copy in the cloud server located in, say, California.

Yes, we should all be backing up our computers and other devices.  Setting it up can feel like a chore, though.  You know it has to be done, but the idea of it seems a bit too daunting–like deciding you need to go through all of your cabinets in order to remodel the kitchen. If you feel like you’ve been procrastinating and need a nudge to get going, or you aren’t sure about how to do it, give me a call.  I’ll be happy to help you through this crucial process!

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