Can you afford not to backup?

Losing valuable data and programs can be a real nightmare, not to mention all the time wasted in re-creating your documents and reinstalling your programs. If you create regular backups, this problem is eliminated. The time spent in learning and performing this simple process verses the time spent trying to recover lost data can be well worth the effort.

How do I backup my data?

There are many utility programs out on the market that allow you to backup your data with relative ease. A cost effective solution if you are running Microsoft Windows is the built-in backup utility application called Backup.

You can backup your data using different media. The more popular media used for backing up data are CD-ROM and ZIP drive. Tape backup is also an option, but this media is used when there is a lot of data (>1Gb), and is usually reserved for a server environment.

Using a CD-ROM burner to backup your data is a good choice, because it can hold up to 700MB of data, and the software is user friendly. Using a ZIP drive can be advantageous in those situations where the amount of data to be backed up is minimal (i.e – 250MB or less).

How often should I backup?

How often you should be performing your backups is an individual choice. Some backup once every day, others backup weekly or fortnightly. It really depends on your needs. Think about how long you want to spend recreating your work if something catastrophic did happen. A daily backup would see you losing at maximum a day’s work, a weekly backup would see you losing a week’s work and so on. Backups should be completed on a regular basis and tested to ensure the data being backed up can be restored, especially if you are in business. A good guide is once a week for business, and once a month for home users.

Automating the process

Ensuring you complete a backup each week doesn’t mean that you will be wasting time while the backup is running. Most backup utilities come with an automatic backup scheduler that performs a backup whether you are at your computer or not. You set the predetermined dates and times for your backup, and then you don’t have to worry about backups again – it’s all automatic!

For more information and advice on backing up your data, please contact us. Our friendly technicians will be happy to help you with the right advice for your needs.