How to Back up Your Computer

We all make efforts to protect our computers from viruses and scams, but sometimes we miss the obvious. Sooner or later you are likely to experience a hard drive failure. If you haven't yet, there is no way to describe the time, horror and cost of loosing what can be years of work and irreplaceable photos, documents and communications, not to mention business files, taxes and other essential information.

Step 1

No matter how busy you are, ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE as often as possible. Even if you are lucky to have a data retrieval expert to help with a crash, it is likely to cost between $600- $1200 and some, many or all your files may still be unretrievable! Just don't risk it. Back up regularly!

Step 2

The best way to back up is to use an external drive. You can find portable USB 2.0 hard drives of 40 up to 400 gigabytes or more. You can use a laptop back pack. Or simply make a habit of regularly copying daily work to CDs. Easier is to copy your data to a DVD. Most of your double layered DVD's can contain 8.5 gigabytes. Single layer DVD's can hold up to 4.7 gigabytes. Tape back ups, flash or thumb drives, zip drives, other computers and second hard drives are more places to back up to. There are even a number of excellent online services that will store your data off-site for you.

Step 3

If you are running a business, you should consider backing up your data daily. For less crucial use, once a week will probably suffice. I wouldn't advise letting more than a month go by for the lightest computer users. Just figure out how much of your work you are willing to lose forever -- a day's, a week's, a month's? -- and you will have your answer.

Step 4

Migo Software puts out a highly recommended product for backing up your data as does Acronis, NovaStor, Roxio, Genie and a number of others. Do some research to find out what program is best for your needs.

Step 5

You don't have to be a computer genius to back up your computer files. Even if you don't think you have important material on your computer, you may discover differently once it's gone. So, please, BACK UP your files as often as you can! And now that I've reminded myself, that's exactly what I'm going to do now...!