Monday, April 1, 2013

BACKUP DAY CONT'D








And you thought I was going to let that subject go by so easily? As mentioned, there are several ways to backup and let's take a look at those a little closer.....
  • In your car, put foot on brake pedal, shift to reverse, look in both directions then slowly let your foot off the brake pedal, allowing you to back up.
  • Standing still with both feet on the floor, slowly move one foot/leg backwards settings it down and obtaining a firm position, then moving the other foot/leg backwards so that both feet are now fairly equal and you have backed up successfully.
  • While sitting at computer look at the lower right-side corner of you desktop. Now move your mouse cursor over the time so that the date is visible. Now, have a happy April 1st....
Seriously, you do have a variety of options to choose from as mentioned in yesterday's post. Of those, I like three in particular:
  • An external USB drive either with backup software provided or, you can choose to use the windows backup program.
  • Backing up data to a website/cloud that encrypts and stores your data off site.
  • Do both
If you choose the external USB drive, get one with enough space leftover covering for growth in the size of data on your computer. I'd refrain from picking out the newest, largest drive possible because sometimes there are issues with the latest/largest new drives that have to be worked out.

Make a game plan on your backups. Will they be weekly? Daily? Will the backup drive always be connected? (I asked that one because some external drives will not power down after a period of time with no use). If it's running all the time, your backup drive runs the risk of failing sooner (than later).

How many backup drives will you buy, and use? One? There is nothing wrong with using one drive, however if you had two or three, you could rotate them so theoretically they'd last longer, but, should one fail, you would still have at least another with most of your data on it.

Not that I'd wish this on you, but picture yourself coming home after work to find your house a smoldering pile of rubble. You just lost your computer, the data on the computer, and - your backup drive(s). It's not a pretty picture, but surely one to consider, along with other things like theft. This is where the online backup excels and I recommend "Carbonite".

Considering the value of just your digital photo's alone, at $60/year Carbonite is a very attractive alternative. Once you've set up your account you pick what folders or files you'd like to have backed up and Carbonite takes over and backs up your data to your special place in their cloud, encrypting it while they do it. Okay, your backup has completed!! Now what do you do? Answer: Nothing.

If you:
  • Create a new Word document and press SAVE - Whoosh, up it goes to join your other data.
  • Download new photos from your camera? Same thing.
  • Open a previously saved document or photo and alter it? Once you press SAVE it replaces the older version in the cloud.
If it sounds pretty cool, your correct, PLUS - you can access your data from anywhere in the world using a computer and browser. All you need is your login name and password. So, it's now up to you and I hope you dofollow through -

'Nuff Said,
Brian

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