Data Backup – How to backup your files

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Having a backup of your data is extremely important.  Not having a data backup when disaster strikes can take your computer problems from bad to worse.  Imagine your hard drive crashes and you don’t have a backup of your psych paper that’s due tomorrow, all the photos of your children since they were born or the Quickbooks files for your business with a tax deadline around the corner.  Now not only do you have to replace a hard drive, but you’ve lost documents which may irreplaceable.

Luckily, there are a number of ways to get your documents backed up these days.  This post is going to go over three of the most common methods.

Manual Data Backup

USB Thumb Drive - Data BackupA manual backup is as simple as connecting an external device such as a thumb drive or portable hard drive and saving a copy of your files on the external device.  You can do this by the drag and drop method or the copy and paste method.

Simply open two file explorer windows.  In one, surf to the location of the files on your computer, and on the other open the external storage location.  Drag and drop or copy and paste and you’ve just created a backup of your files.

Automatic Data Backup

Acronis True Image - Data BackupUsing automatic backup software gives you the ability to configure the backup one time, and it automatically runs on a schedule without any further input from you.  Set it and forget it, as the old saying goes.  Windows has backup and recovery options which include an automatic backup feature, but some third party programs like Acronis True Image offer more robust features and an improved user interface.

Cloud Backup – Online Backup

Much like automatic backup software, cloud backup or online backup automatically saves your files based on a schedule.  The difference is cloud backup also gives you the added security of being safe from catastrophic damage and loss such as fire damage or theft.

Imagine that you’ve always been diligent about backing up your files to an external hard drive.  Then one day the unthinkable happens; a thief smashes your car window and grabs your laptop bag.  Your backup drive was in the side pocket right next to your computer; both are lost.  If you’d been utilizing an online backup system your files would be safe even though the computer is lost.

It’s also important to note that just as internal hard drives can fail, so can external drives.  The best bet for most customers is a cloud storage online backup.  We recommend IDrive.  IDrive offers free online backup up to 5GB, and 1TB of space (that’s over 1000GB) is less than $5/month.  Click here for more details, and remember Install Heroes; Call and we’ll come to the rescue!

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