Backing up your data is essential. Hard drives fail, a virus may strike, whatever the cause may be, the effect is that all your hard work, videos and irreplaceable images are gone. Ideally a procedure for backing up should be automatic. Automatic backup means that the backup will never be forgotten, very important before there is a system failure.
The first stage to starting automatic backup is to identify exactly what data needs to be backed up. Generally this will be email, videos, images and documents. If you are using windows then you already have an option available free of charge called windows backup.
Alternatively you can decide to backup online. This can be done automatically and your data is stored by the provider. In the event of a system failure it is an easy process to download your data after the system has been recovered.
Typically you are charged on the size of your data backup and some on-line services even offer an automatic backup of any data file when it is changed.
If you not using automatic backup software and instead doing it manually, then consider burning your data to DVD, put the disks in a safe location and in a separate location from your computer. This will prevent the issue of a fire or theft at your primary data site and prevent you losing all your data.
System and software can be easily replaced, very often your data cannot!
By Len Cobb – Nerds On Site, Ottawa.
leonard.cobb@nerdsonsite.com