TECH TALK: The importance of backing up your computer

ERIC’S TECH TALK

by Eric Austin
Computer Technical Advisor

This past weekend I was the unfortunate victim of a hard drive crash. I have multiple drives installed in my computer, and this was my main Windows system drive. Even more infuriatingly, the drive was less than a year old.

It took me two days to diagnose the problem, pull out the bad drive and install a new one. And it got me thinking about how important backing up your data can be! Here are a few best practices to keep in mind.

Don’t let this happen to you!

Consider using a separate drive for your data.

You’ll want to install your operating system (OS) to the fastest drive attached to your computer, which is typically your internal hard drive, so use this drive to install programs or games. But since this is also the drive that is used most often, writing and reading as your system runs, it’s therefore the drive most likely to fail.

So use another physical drive to store your personal data (e.g. pictures, documents, etc…). The simplest solution for this is to invest in a flash drive that can be plugged into a spare USB port. A 64 GB flash drive is currently available on Amazon for only $15.99. The advantage to this is how easy it is to unplug the drive and take your data with you as the need arises.

Luckily, I followed this advice myself and didn’t lose any significant data when my system drive crashed.

You might also consider cloud solutions to back up your data. Most cloud storage solutions like Dropbox, Apple’s iCloud or Microsoft’s OneDrive, allow you to set up automatic syncing so that certain folders on your hard-drive are always synced with a copy of your data stored in the cloud. Although all of these cloud solutions have free options, you’ll likely need to pay a subscription if you want to store a large amount of data.

There are a number of good automated back-up systems available, including Apple’s excellent Time Machine utility that comes packaged in OS X, or Windows Backup and Restore tool. Most of these solutions require an external drive dedicated to backing up (and can’t be used for anything else). But with the cheap availability of hard drives, especially flash drives, this is certainly an option you should look into if you don’t want to mess with manually copying the data yourself.

Another option is to invest in a Blu-ray drive that lets you back-up to a Blu-ray disc which can hold up to 47 gigabytes. This is a good option if you want a portable back-up that can be stored off-site.

Whichever solution you choose, build in some redundancy. This means that if you back up your data every month to one external drive, then back it up every six months to a different drive, so that when your first back-up fails (and it will), you won’t be completely SOL. Even better, take that second back-up and store it in a separate location from the first, like a safety deposit box or a friend’s house. This is so that if your house burns down or is burgled (God forbid!) you’ll have another back-up to (pardon the pun) fall back on.

Ransomeware screenshot (image source: The New York Times)

A hard drive crash or natural disaster isn’t the only reason to make sure you always have a recent back-up of your data. WannaCry is a computer virus that hit the entire planet earlier this year. It’s a particular kind of virus called “Ransomware” that invades your computer, encrypts all of your data (making it inaccessible to you), and then shows you a screen demanding a wire transfer of $2,000 or it will delete your data.

A lot of people paid that ransom because they didn’t have a recent back-up of their data.

Don’t wait till it happens to you. Start backing up your data today!

Have a question or idea for a column? Send me an email at ericwaustin@gmail.com or leave a comment on townline.org!