How to Backup Your Computer and Why

When it comes to backing up your computer, there are two important questions to ask. How? And  how often?

You should backup your computer once a week. If you’re a heavy user, you should back up more often than that. The frequency with which you set your backup schedule should be based on one simple principle: How much data am I willing to lose? Because that is the reason you are doing a backup to begin with – to recover data after a significant loss.

How you backup your data is in another question. And the answer to this question also has to do with your comfort when it comes to taking risks. just like the frequency with which you set your backup leaves vulnerable some data, your ability to recover the data you have protected may be vulnerable to the method in which it was lost. The most probable methods to lose their data include hard drive failure/corruption, virus attacks, and theft.

Usually Microsoft Windows, if this is your operating system, provides a small partition you can use to backup important data. However, the amount of space here available for backup is usually limited which means you will have to be selective about the files you backup. That aside, this method is fine if the cause for your loss is hard drive failure/corruption or a virus attack, but would be useless against theft.

Imagine that you are sitting in an airport, drinking the coffee and waiting for your next flight, with your laptop in its case by your feet. Somebody comes up to ask you the time. Then he distracts you for a moment with one or two other questions. After he leaves, you resume drinking your coffee. Then, when you go to board your plane, your laptop is on. And so is your backup.

So maybe you consider buying an external hard drive and scheduling backups to it. In my opinion, this is a much better option than the former, as it means your primary computer and your backup are not always in the same location. However, God forbid you should be the victim of a home robbery, then this backup may also disappear with your computer.

A third backup option involves using a third-party service like iDrive to back up your computer. These services are slow to set up the first time and our Internet dependent, but they do provide the advantage of having their data backed up in an entirely different location. The risk here is, of course, that day is your data were shut down or, for some reason, you are unable to recover it. However, these risks are nominal.

So now that you are aware of your options and can make a decision about the frequency with which you should run the backup, my advice is that you set up two back up methods. Redundancy is the key to protection. After all, while the odds of being the victim of any single event are high enough to consider seriously, the odds that you will have your laptop stolen at the airport or your home robbed on the same day are very low.