Tip #1 Back up your Data
Nothing is more important on your computer than to back up your data. Imagine all the pictures you took at Christmas time lost because your computer crashed. Weekly back ups are essential. Backing up your data has gotten easier as the years have gone by. It used to be that you would have to burn your data onto countless CD’s. The upside of this is that you would have a time machine of all your data. The downside of this system is that you have stacks of CD’s in your office.
Today data back up is easy. External Hard drives are one solution to easily back up your data. These hard drives plug into your computer’s USB port and acts like another hard drive on your computer. To back up your data you simply have to copy the files to the external hard drive. Western Digital makes great hard drives that are fast and easy to use. It’s important to keep your files on your computer as well as the external hard drive. Consider both a back up to each other. If you don’t have two copies of a file you can considerthat you don’t have the file.
But what happens if your house burns down? This is a horrible turn of events, but having your priceless pictures would be a good consolation. Backing your data up to an online source is an excellent way to have the third leg of the back up triangle. Carbonite is a great service to use. The best part about it is the files update on carbonite when you update them on your system making the back up process effortless. If you’re still on dial up carbonite is not for you, your files are are too large to update each time on a 56k connection. If you are still on dial up you should either burn your VERY important data on a DVD and either send it to a loved one that you trust. An external hard drive in a bank Safety deposit box is a better solution because you don’t have to keep spending money on DVD’s, plus Hard drives hold more.
If you have any questions or would like AS Computer Services to help you setup your back up solution please contact us.
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