The best strategy for backing up your important data is to use a combination of local and off-site storage. In the case of a catastrophe such as fire or theft you want to have a copy somewhere away from your home. An example of this might be to use two external hard drives, take one to work and keep one at home and rotate them weekly. Another way to have a local and off-site solution is to use one external hard drive and use online storage.
Why should you back up?
The statistics are staggering: every year 43% of computer users lose irreplaceable files. If you’re like most people, you have all your important data in one place and you don’t back up. Experts say having only one copy of important data is the same as having no copies. Hard drives fail sooner or later. It’s been said there are two types of hard drives, ones that have failed and ones that WILL fail. Don’t think it can’t happen to you.
How often should you back up?
My suggestion is to back up your most important files once a day and the rest, as a general rule you should back up once a week.
What should you back up?
When I back up data for my clients I make sure I back up the following:
Documents
Photos
Music
Videos
Favorites
Address book
How do you back up your data?
If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7 you already have everything you need to back up your data with Backup & Restore Center. You choose what to backup, where to back it up and how often and Windows take care of the rest.You can get to the Backup & Restore Center by clicking Start, Control Panel, Backup & Restore Center.
In Windows Vista:
Click back up files.
Choose what to back up.
Choose when to back up.
In Windows 7:
Click Set up backup.
Choose your destination.
Choose whether to have Windows pick what to back up or to choose manually.
If you chose "Let Me Pick", Select the folders you want backed up.
Click Change schedule.
Choose how often and when to back up.
If you are still using Windows XP, you will have to install software to perform automatic backups. I recommend Microsoft’s free software called Sync Toy. The idea with Sync Toy is creating folder pairs. The left folder is the source folder on your computer, the right folder is the destination such as a folder on an external hard drive or a network location.
You then choose one of 5 synchronization methods. Echo works like a standard one-way sync, copying all files from Left to Right. Synchronize is bidirectional; Contribute works like Echo but it won't delete files removed from the Left folder; Subscribe only updates files in common that have been updated; and Combine merges Synchronize and Contribute so that files are updated in both directions, but none are deleted.
A free online solution is DropBox. You get 2GB of online storage for free and can pay for more if needed. Once installed DropBox puts a folder inside your Documents folder. Anything that is put into your Dropbox folder is instantly and constantly backed up online.
DropBox also works as a synchronization tool. You can install DropBox on multiple computers and anything in your DropBox folder is synchronized between all them. For instance, I put my Quickbooks company file in my DropBox folder so whether I open Quickbooks on my laptop, netbook or home PC the data is all the same.
Any data in your DropBox folder is also available online at DropBox.com so if you are at a friend’s house and need to access your files you can.
Another online solution is Carbonite. Carbonite installs a small application on your computer that works quietly in the background looking for new changed files that need to be backed up. It looks and feels just like part of your computer and is integrated with your operating system.
When your computer is idle, Carbonite automatically backs up your new or changed files. You don’t have to do anything. When you are using your computer Carbonite goes to sleep so it will never slow you down or interfere with your internet connection.
Carbonite offers unlimited backup for $54.95US per year.
Next week I'll be covering managing your music library.
Please send your questions to questions@thegeekdownthestreet.com
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