The importance of backing up your data

The importance of backing up your data

by Shauna Millar | Nov. 21, 2018

If you use a Windows computer, you may be familiar with what is known as the “blue screen of death.” Mac users aren’t immune, either. They just get a cute little icon with a frowny face. While sometimes these errors can be recoverable, the times they ‘aren’t’ is what I want to address.

If you have ever lost everything on your computer, you know what I am talking about. The heart dropping, gut-wrenching realization that everything you have worked so hard for is gone. All your documents, music, videos – and most importantly – all your priceless photos. It is at this moment, the little light bulb goes off over your head and with a giant exclamation mark screams, “You should have backed up everything.”

Most people don’t back up for a variety of reasons:

1.) It will never happen to me (until it does.)

2.) I already lost everything; what are the chances it will happen again? (Greater than you might think.)

3.) I will do it later (if tomorrow never comes…)

4.) It takes too much time, I will come back to it later (don’t put off ’til tomorrow what you can get done today).

5.) I don’t know how to back up my stuff (no time like the present to learn.).

First, backing up to an external hard-drive is easier than you think. You can purchase a USB thumb-drive (or several; one for documents, one for images, etc.) or you can purchase an external hard-drive. The reason you want to use an external hard-drive is that they aren’t always hooked up to your computer and if something happens to the computer, then you still have your back up. (In honesty, I have lost my information enough that I am a fan of backing up my backups.)

Even if you keep your external hard-drive connected to your computer, if something happens to the computer it more than likely won’t affect the external hard-drive. (There is always the unlikely event of a power spike which could ruin your back up hard drive as well.)

So, once you connect your external backup to the USB port on your computer, it will open up a window to show the contents of the folder. It may ask you what you want to do with the hard-drive. I just tell it to open up the folders.

Once you have the folder open, you will see on the left side a list of all your computer’s contents. The C drive icon, the documents folder, the download folder, etc. You can right-click on one of these and tell it to “open in a new window”. This will make it easier to drag-and-drop the information from one window to the next.

Next, you select the contents you want to move by holding the left mouse button and dragging the box it creates around the content you want to move. Once you have done this, you can select the files and drag them to the other window and say “copy” here. This will open up yet another window to show the ‘moving’ process and how long it is going to take.

You can also “save as” documents to your external hard-drives and just save your items directly there. This is just like using another drive.

You can also tell windows to do a “weekly/monthly” backup to an external. As long as you have the hard-drive connected, it will do it automatically. I am not a fan of this method, simply because a lot of times Windows backs up your applications as well as your documents. While you may think this will save you time, it can use up a lot of room and it doesn’t save your registration information, so you end up having to re-set up these things anyway. Plus if you do lose everything, sometimes it is better to reinstall your applications so you can have a “clean” install on your computer, without any of the stuff that previously may have been causing you problems.

If you take the time to back up your photos and documents, you’ll save yourself a LOT of grief when your hard drive on your main computer dies. And eventually, they all do…