When you are talking about backing up your computer, the rule of thumb is EARLY & OFTEN.  Unless your computer came with a Recovery Drive already installed, it is important to create a back up of the new computer as soon as you set everything up.  This will save you big headaches in the future if your hard drive has a problem or your OS gets corrupted.  I like to install all the extra programs and printers that I need and install updates before creating my back up.  This will save you time if you ever need to use that backup.

This initial back up will allow you to restore your computer back to the brand new state at any time.  You will lose all of your data (documents, pictures, etc.) when you do this restore so this brings us to the other type of back up.

Data back ups are essential for businesses that have all of their important information on their computer systems, but it is also very important if you have pictures that aren’t stored somewhere else or any other information that you can’t live without or recreate if something happens to your computer.  There are many ways to back up your data, ranging from fancy systems that cost hundreds or ever thousands of dollars to simple plans that won’t cost anything but a little time. 

Here are a few of the most popular options for backing up your data:

1.  Purchase an external hard drive that has back up software built into the drive.  These usually cost from $60 and up depending on the size that you need.  Get one that is at least two or three times the size of your hard drive.  The software is usually pretty easy to set up and they will automatically backup your software as often as you want.

2.  Use the cloud.  This is a sort of generic term for over the internet storage.  Many companies offer initial storage (usually 5GB) for free and charge for extra on top of that.  Some companies that have this are Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and many others.  Most of these come with some sort of software to keep your back ups current.

3.  Picture storage.  Companies like Wal-Mart, Walgreens and Snapfish will allow you to upload all of you photos to their websites and store them there.  They will even let you put a password on your account so you can share your photos with anyone that has your password.  They do this for free hoping that you will take advantage of their picture processing services.

4.  Personal storage devices.  Using blank CD’s and DVD’s you can write all of your data to disc and store away for later use if needed.  Another device that works well is the USB thumb drive.  You can get a USB drive that will hold 32GB or even 64GB for not much money and these are easy to use and don’t take up much space.  These options don’t have built in software so you will have to copy/paste to backup your files onto them.

So there is no good excuse for not backing up your files.  These options will fit into any budget.  As always Duane’s Reliable Computer Services is here to help with these or any computer problems you may have.

CONTACT US for help with your backup plan.

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