Should you carry health insurance? Should you carry car insurance? Should you save for retirement? Should you eat every day? Does a bear…. Well, hopefully you get the picture. The answer is a resounding YES!!
You should backup, and depending on your computer needs and usage your backups should occur frequently (sometimes daily). Many computer users equate backing up their computers with their mother’s giving them castor oil. It’s no fun, but a necessary evil. What is castor oil any way?
Things you should backup on your computer include:
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Address books
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Email (if you save a lot of it, or don’t use web based email)
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Any documents you create in Word, Excel, etc
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Financial program data (Quicken, Money, etc)
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Digital photos
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Installation files of programs you downloaded from the Internet
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Internet Favorites or bookmarks
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Family history information
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Anything you deem important and irreplaceable
Things you don’t need to worry about backing up:
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Windows
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Program files which you have CD’s for like Word, Excel, Print Shop, Quicken, etc
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Anything that you didn’t have a hand in making
Backing up your computer files isn’t fun or sexy, but it is as important to modern day computing as having up-to-date anti-virus software running on your computer. Yikes, don’t get me started on another topic!
Search my web site for “backup”, and you will find over 25 articles to help you learn to backup. Tips on how to backup your address book, your pictures and more. Even some cool articles and reviews on backup software and backup devices. One good article from two years ago can be found by clicking here.
Do it today…your data might not wait for you tomorrow.
Backing up is so important and I nag people about it all the time. 2 months after I started backing up on a daily basis my hard drive died. If I hadn’t started a back-up plan, I would have lost everything.
I do, however, back up my web based email. Maybe it’s overkill but I worry about getting locked out of my account and I have so much in there. I back it up every day.
I don’t know if backing up installation files of downloaded programs is important – can’t they be downloaded again? I do think backing up the Application Data folders in Windows is important though – that way I have all my settings when I reinstall a program.
Woo hoo! Another backup fan…well can we really be called “fans”. We know it’s one of those necessities of being a computer user. And no, I don’t think backing up your web based mail is obsessive…if it’s important, it all should be backed up! Thanks for the comment, Kim…always glad to see you over here.
To paraphrase the old saw about voting in Chicago: backup early and backup often! I use:
1 – MozyHome (free – contact me for info and a referral code). Set to back up selected critical files (accounts, programming, etc) at least nightly and whenever computer is not used during day.
2 – USB drives. I have several, devoted to different groups of files, and back up to these manually at least once a week. The 8 GB holds a lot!
3 – External hard drive. I have a Seagate (1 TB, as I recall) and do extensive backups to it about every 2-3 weeks.
4 – CD/DVDs. I copy photo files to disk periodically to have copies for my wife to use.
I use Allway Sync software for #2 and 3, setting up separate jobs for the different groups.
Rick: any suggestions or comments?
I love it!! Great backup routine with a lot of redundancy ( a good thing when it comes to backup). I can’t think of a thing to change!!
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