Is It Really That Important To Backup Your Data?
May 18, 2008 – 2:30 pmFor many people, computers have become a daily necessity. We use them for work, for correspondence and for entertainment. Many of the files are important documents and losing them would cost us time and money. Backups are the best way to prevent their permanent loss.
Many people think of backups as something large companies or computer geeks do. Or they might plan on doing it when the get the chance. Every one of those people has either already lost data due to some kind of problem with their system or they will one day. Every piece of computer equipment has a lifespan and is going to fail one day or another.
When that happens, you’ll be faced with one of two things. On one hand, you’ll have a backup of all your critical information and can restore it all back onto your repaired computer or a new replacement. On the other hand, you’ll lose the financial information, music, digital photos and all the other important files on your computer.
There are, unfortunately, an infinite variety of ways to lose data. Besides hardware failure, computers can be destroyed in fires or floods. Hard drives can be damaged by power surges caused by lightning strikes or data lost by a child randomly hitting the keyboard. Viruses can infect systems and erase hard drives.
Having that data stored in a backup is often the only way to get it back. And even if it can be recovered by a data recovery service, it can cost thousands of dollars for them to do the work.
What Do You Need To Backup?
Most people don’t actually have to backup every single file on their computer. This can require a large amount of storage and can take a long time. The critical things to backup are all the files you have created and any software that cannot be replaced. Financial records, word processing documents, legal files - the list goes on and on.
But backups needn’t be.
The easiest way to backup your files is to use the software that comes with most operating systems. Windows includes one, as does Mac OS X, Linux and others. These programs are usually pretty straightforward and it’s just a matter of selecting the files and folders you want to save. Many of them can even be scheduled to run in the middle of the night or some other time you’re not using your computer.
If you want something a little more powerful, there are a number of backup program you can purchase. These programs offer features such as only backing up files that have changed since the last backup, or those that have changed since a particular date.
Some data, such as e-mails are only slightly more difficult to protect. Some e-mail clients can be configured to keep copies of received and sent e-mails on the e-mail server. When that’s not an option, most can export messages to a file, which can then be backed up.
Backups can be done to any kind of removable media - writeable CD’s/DVD’s, removable hard drives or even the newer ‘keychain’ devices that plug into a USB port. Even floppy disks can still be used in many cases. Documents often take a small amount of space. Just set aside 7 disks and rotate them from week to week.
Daily backups are one more thing to do in a busy schedule. But the day you lose that file you need and can’t restore, you’re going to be a whole lot busier.
Tags: Data Recovery
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