Today I have a treat for you. My regular readers know by now what a non-techie I am. But there are some things we need to be able to do, whether they seem technical or not. Mr. Paul E. Lubic, Jr. has consented to be our guest writer for this month and hopefully on a regular monthly basis. Paul is a seasoned IT professional who has held positions such as Computer Programmer, IT Security Manager and Chief Information Officer. His blog, www.PaulsHomeComputingBlog.wordpress.com discusses the various aspects of home computing.
In this article, Paul explains how and why to back up our computer files. Last week my daughter lost a number of important documents she had neglected to save somewhere other than her computer. So right after I read this, I spent my evening following Paul’s advice.
Computers are wonderful tools that help us get our work done more efficiently, entertain us, and give us access to the Internet. However, computers are machines…electronic machines…that can, and eventually do, fail. When a failure happens, especially if one of your disk storage drives is involved; its probable that you will lose the many files of information, software, family photographs, music files, your Internet favorites, and emails.
Okay…enough doom and gloom…I think you get the picture that it can be a bad situation. So, what can be done to avoid losing all our precious files while our computer is being fixed? Plenty, and it’s not hard, technically challenging or complicated. But it does take some organization and dedication on your part. Its a very simple concept; copy your files to a removable storage device on a regular basis.
First, identify the files you’d really hate to lose and/or files it’d take a long time and effort to recreate and make a list of them and the folders in which they reside. Now that you have your “must have” files list, we need a rough estimate of their collective size. This can be acquired by right-clicking the file on Windows Explorer and selecting properties. The size of the file is one of the attributes listed in the properties displayed. Keep a total of these file sizes. When you’ve gotten them all added up and have a total, that will guide you in the purchase of the removable storage we need for backing up your files.
There are several options for removable media such as portable hard disk drives that we connect using the USB port; writable CD or DVD drives that, when the CD or DVD is written to, can be removed, and USB flash drives. For convenience, I recommend a flash drive because of their relative low cost and ease of use. A flash drive is a small plastic stick of memory that comes in various sizes of storage and can be plugged into a computer’s USB receptacle. When plugged in, it becomes an additional disk drive on your computer. Depending on the total amount of storage needed for your list of files, choose a flash drive with at least that much storage capacity but the more the better because your storage requirements will increase over time. I back up my files on a 4 Gigabyte flash drive.
Next, you will need to copy those files on your list to the flash drive. Use the Windows Explorer copy function or drag-and-drop the files from your hard drive location to the flash drive location. When all your files have been copied to the flash drive, store it in a safe place, preferably in another location (in case, heaven forbid, you have a fire).
Okay, we’re almost done. But here comes the really hard part…forming a habit of regularly copying the files to the thumb drive. This is important, so I’m going to say it again…you must copy your files to the thumb drive on a regular basis so that your backed-up files on the thumb drive will be relatively current if and when you need them.
Once you’ve accomplished a solid backup routine, your data will be much safer and you’ll be much happier should the worse case become a reality and your computer fails you. You’ll be able to copy the files back to the repaired or new computer and move on with your computing anew.
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Yes, we all need to do more backing up.Was sorry to learn of your daughters problem. I would suggest several types of media, say both a flash drive and a USB External hard drive or on DVD’s, etc. Same applies to Web Sites, they also should be backed up & probably put on one’s favorite media as well(DVD’s, etc)
I’m trying to back up more often. If you have any suggestions so it isn’t so complicated, please tell me. What I mean is that after I do one full backup, I want the rest to be partial and I don’t want to have to figure out which files I need to do each time. I need an automated solution.