Backing up your Data
Many of us now use our computers for increasingly more purposes. If you run your own business or are self employed and work from home a computer is an essential piece of kit. Data can be lost either in error, through problems with your hardware or software and increasingly more often through attacks from viruses. Backing up your data is the one of the most effective methods of keeping your data secure.
The Basics of Backing up your Data
Backing up your computer involves taking data from your hard drive and storing it on an alternative form of media. Your hard drive is an integral part of your computer that is essential for the running of all applications on your computer.
Unfortunately as your hard drive is permanently in use it is also vulnerable, especially when you are browsing the internet. Many viruses will specifically target your hard drive causing damage not only to data stored but also key components of your hard drive rendering it useless for future use.
When to back up your computer will vary with your individual use. Businesses in particular usually back up their system daily. It is recommended that you back up your hard drive at least each month. If you make amendments to files you have saved then you will need to back them up again to save the changes.
Most people just back up their most important files regularly and do a full back up less often. If you are working from home you may prefer to back up your work daily or weekly depending on when you sign off your projects.
How to back up your data
There are several different methods you can use to back up your data. Depending on what kind of data you are backing up will usually govern what form of media is used. The main factor is the volume of data being stored, in particular the size of the files.
Floppy Disks are a cost effective means of storing your data. They are available from most electronics outlets and take up little space, providing a practical and portable solution. Floppy discs have a small capacity and are good for storing text documents. Data can be saved by simply dragging the icon from the relevant area onto the corresponding disc drive in my computer. Programs can be used to zip data which will compress file sizes, allowing more content to be
stored on each disc.- CDs and DVDs are an effective method for backing up your data. CDs offer a generous amount of space and DVDs often much more. Programs for writing the data to discs are readily available with instructions contained within. The software is usually designed to be user friendly and you can back up your data quickly and easily in a portable form. CDs in particular are a very cheap solution for backing up data.
Zip Drives have existed on the market for sometime as an effective method for backing up data. They can be used externally as a stand alone drive or installed in your computer. Zip disks hold large amounts of data which can be zipped and unzipped as required to compress or restore the information. They also have user friendly software which is simple to get to grip with.