Personal data is the most important element of your computer experience. A good back up makes disaster recovery easier – should your hardware be compromised in some manner or operating system be corrupted, it is vital that there is a copy of your most cherished files.
Data backups are more important now that smartphones have become ubiquitous and seemingly indisposable. Losing a phone is an unpleasant experience but insurance covers the hardware, it’s the data that is irreplaceable. Making a backup of your data should be a priority, a back up of the operating system in its last working form may also be a good idea. Thankfully, the process of backing up data is now cheaper and easier than ever.
There are two main options – backing up to an external drive or backing up ‘the cloud’.
The process of backing up to an external drive begins with purchasing a hard drive (or flash drive) from a reputable company that has sufficient capacity for your data. Western Digital provide a number of good options.
The steps for backing up data as a Windows 7 are to be found in the ‘Control Panel where users have the ‘Backup and Restore’ options within the operating system. Windows 8/10 users will find their backup options contained within the ‘File History Settings’. Mac users have ‘Time Machine’. Linux users have a plethora of great options.
For those looking for useful cloud backup options:
JustCloud - http://www.justcloud.com/
Carbonite - http://www.carbonite.com/
OneDrive - https://onedrive.live.com
Dropbox - https://www.dropbox.com/
Google Drive - https://drive.google.com
Amazon Cloud Drive - https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/home/
Each service provides instructions as to how to safely store your data.
Backing up data is a good habit to cultivate but ensuring that the backup file is retrievable is equally importance.
0 comments:
Post a Comment