How to Backup Files On Your Computer: 6 Options for You to Consider
If you are exploring options on how to backup files on your computer, good for you. You are on the right track to protecting your data from possible loss. Viruses may attack any time, computers crash when least expected, and natural disasters may strike without warning – all these are potential causes of data loss.
When these situations come up, the effort you made on knowing how to backup files and just doing this regularly will be worth it.
The 6 most convenient ways backing up your computer files are:
1. Email
Backing up files via email involves attaching every single file you are working on to an email message. This method is a very simple one, and as email comes for free, it costs very little, if any at all. On the downside, attaching files to email individually can be a very tedious task, and may even cause you to miss backing up a file or two. Email storage is also limited so you won’t be able to back everything up. Plus, you need to be prepared for the possibility that when your email service is down, you won’t have access to those backup files too.
2. Using backup utilities that come with Operating Systems like Vista
Backup systems offered with an OS like Vista are reliable and comes at no cost at all. But if you are creating backup files with the intention of protecting your data in case of a hard drive failure or a computer crash, it really doesn’t make much sense to store the backup file in the same computer.
3. Using third party solutions or software backup utilities
One good thing about this option is that these backup utilities are usually very affordable. Unfortunately, many things work against it. First, some software can eat up a lot of your resources and bog down your computer. Others can be really buggy and may not run properly or backup automatically. If the software itself can’t be trusted to work properly and can even crash, it’s not really a very reliable solution, is it?
4. CDs and DVDs
Keeping backups of your computer files in CDs and DVDs is a very common practice. What makes this method popular is the ease of the process. On the other hand, backing up files through CDs can be very time consuming, and costly in the long run because even a small amount of data may require an entire CD. Optical disks are also prone to scratches that can damage the file contents, or they can be easily snatched or misplaced. Should any of these happen, how would you retrieve your backups?
5. External hard drives
Using external hard drives is one of the better solutions on how to backup files on your computer. The pros: external hard drives are affordable, and are now available in the 1 terabyte level so huge files are a breeze. You don’t need to worry about the hard drive getting scratched, and with only one device to think about, keeping it secure is easy too.
Backing files up using external drives does have its disadvantages, though. Just like your computer hard drive, it can crash too! And because hard drives are kept “on site” (again just like your computer), it can be destroyed too in case of a calamity like a fire. Lastly, these drives don’t do automatic backup so you should always remember to do so manually.
6. Online Backup
There are many advantages to using online backup services. They are affordable and easy to use. They backup files automatically everyday; no need to remember doing the backup yourself. The best thing about online storage and backup is that the files are kept “off site” – far from the dreaded crashes, viruses, and disasters. My choice of online backup service is Carbonite. At less than $5/month, it’s cheap insurance to protect my files from all the possible causes of data loss.
However, online backup has its flaws too. For one, restoring files is not as convenient as it should be. File retrieval can take up to days for large volume of files or restoring the entire contents of your computer. You should also remember that you are depending on a third party for your important files and data. If the company goes out of business or just stops its service for some reason, where would that leave your files?
So which is the best computer backup solution?
Now that you have a good idea of how to backup files on you computer, you be the judge on which the best safeguarding alternatives are. Personally, I find the last two options, external hard drive and online backup, of which I use Carbonite Backup, the unbeatable combination when it comes to ensuring the complete preservation and security of your files. This way, you can always have a physical backup with you for a quick file retrieval process, and you have an online backup too in case of computer disasters at your end.
