Regularly backing up one's computer hard drive is the sort of thing most people know they should do, but don't do until they learn the hard way how painful it is to lose everything on their machine.
I'm sort of in that category. As a digital business I knew I needed to have a backup of my hard drive, but I was too cheap to do it right. So I manually did backups whenever I remembered and I tried to do it weekly, or at least monthly.
And then my computer picked up a virus. I lost a month of work from the resulting reboot. My computer had to be completely wiped and rebuilt. Most of that process was easy enough, if a pain in the ass. But a month's worth of work was a lot of wasted time and some of what I lost wasn't worth re-doing (financially) but was a disappointment to lose nonetheless.
Lesson learned. These days, even losing a single days worth of work would be unacceptable. It would just be so annoying to have to go back and do it all over again. And some things might not be replaceable.
Luckily backups have become easier and cheaper than ever making it inexcusable to put it off or to do it right.
There are so many ways to achieve a full backup of your hard drive and many services or tools to choose from. The topic of backups is huge, overwhelming and can seem a lot more complicated than it needs to be.
My approach and advice here is meant for tech nervous newbies who just want the job done without incurring a migraine in the process!
First, it is highly recommended to have two backup systems. A local backup and a remote backup.
Local - this is a backup that is right there with you, physically, in your home. I recommend plugging in an external drive (size will be dependent on your needs, but 2-4TB is the average). Then just use your computer's built in auto backup software or choose to install something that will backup your entire computer to that external drive on an automated schedule. Usually this will include a time sequence of backups, so you can go back to a previous backup a month ago to retrieve lost files which is super helpful.
This doesn't need to be complicated, just plug a USB drive of sufficient size into your computer and setup the backup software. Most computers come with this as standard and it is not complicated.
It's super important though that you periodically check the local backup process is actually working. Never take for granted that it will work, and continue to work, unchecked!
If you are using a laptop this can be a bit more challenging because you'll need to setup a routine to plug everything in on a regular basis in order to run that backup. But if that's your main computer and you have important files/photos on it imagine losing the whole lot.
An alternative many people are using instead of a local backup drive is to keep everything stored in a cloud service like google docs or dropbox. However, these aren't backup services, they are file sharing services and so they don't offer quite the same level of security and protection.
Local backups are great for file retrieval if your computer goes down or gets replaced. But it doesn't solve the problem of theft from burglary, your house burning down, flattened or flooded or if you've been evacuated and couldn't grab that drive on the way out.
That's where remote backup becomes critical. If you have a digital business like mine this should be viewed the same as an insurance policy. You're protecting your hard work just in case something awful happens.
I prefer cloud backup solutions that are fully automated and I can just set it and leave it. I also like it to be affordable and flexible for making changes.
There are quite a few choices out there, and you should pick whichever one you feel is best for you, but I've been using Backblaze for years now and I can highly recommend them. Their pricing starts at just $7 a month and their services are some of the best.
With an automated service you just setup the backup details for your hard drive and everything happens in the background without you having to do anything except leave your computer switched on long enough for backups to happen.
If you want to try Backblaze my referral link gets you one month free when you sign up.
Thankfully I've never had to get a full backup from them but they offer two ways to retrieve your full backup - via download over an internet connection, or they post a refundable drive to you. You can also choose an option to retrieve individual files which is awesome if you're traveling and need to access something.
I live in a region where wildfire threat is a constant worry so the peace of mind remote backups give me is absolutely necessary, and as a business it's a tax deduction anyway.
I will never lose another file ever again!
Safe computing
Shawnna
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