Backup Your Data, Before It's Too Late!
Backing up important files should be included in your computer maintenance schedule. Too many people fail to realize how important making a backup is until it is too late.
In the event of a hard drive failure, unless you have a good backup, all of your work is gone. If you have an extensive list of email addresses you really need, those email addresses are gone. If you have important email messages you need for business purposes, those email messages are gone. Any unpublished websites or pages are gone. Paid programs and CD keys that were downloaded will be gone. A disaster!
Sometimes files can be recovered using a data recovery service, but that can be quite expensive. There are some software programs that can retrieve data from a crashed hard drive, but the retrieval can be incomplete and many files may be too corrupted to use.
Your backup system depends on how you use your computer. If all the data you need to keep safe is your email and your everyday documents such as your web pages, money records, etc., then you may get away with just backing up your files to flash drives and/or CDs. Flash drives are getting bigger and less expensive all the time. I use about four of them to backup things I can't afford to lose and rotate them off site to my bank box.
I also use a USB external hard drive and Acronis, an excellent backup software. I backup the entire drive using Acronis and in the event of a hard drive failure I could replace the drive and use my backup to completely restore everything.
Many folks use a free backup program called 'Replicator' from Karen's Power Tools site. You can configure it to back up your data files on a daily basis. I use Karen's Replicator to make daily backups of documents I can't afford to use.
Don't take chances with your stuff! The question is not 'if your hard drive crashes, but when'. Hard drives are more reliable now than they used to be, but crashes still occur. Why take chances when you can avoid a huge data loss with a backup. Don't forget other things can occur to cause a data loss, like a virus infection, theft or fire.
Files that should be backed up include the following:
- Paid programs and CD keys that were downloaded. (Not on CDs)
- Email addresses and messages.
- Your Favorites
- Financial data in MS Money or Quicken.
- Word documents, Excel files and unpublished website pages.
I also use Firefox and I backup my Firefox profile.
Remember to keep those backups current!