Providing back up data regularly helps protect it
from being erased if something happens to your computer. Timely and
regular back up makes your work safe and accessible whenever your system
crashes. You can access a data backup from another computer if your
original computer’s hard drive can’t be read, thereby saving you the
time of reconstructing your important files or data. A data backup can
also be used to transfer important files from one computer to another
when working with several computers or to archive previous versions of a
particular file.
It is a good idea to back up data in several
different ways, so that you have an extra backup in case your primary
backup medium fails. You may also want to dedicate backup media to
certain files such as a flash drive just for your current writing
projects or an external hard drive just for your photographs or music
files.
There are so many storage media to which you can back
up data. The one you choose depends on the amount and nature of the
data you intend to provide a back up for.
Flash drives: you can get a flash drive from any
seller or at any super market. Plug into your computer’s USB port, then
go to my computer inside your system to format it before using it. Flash
drives are useful for storing your most important files in the system
and making it available for use when the system has crashed or to
transfer files between computers.
Recordable CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs can be read from
your computer’s CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. They must be formatted, or
“burned,” using a drive capable of writing on them; most recent
computers have drives that can write both on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM discs.
Recordable CD-ROM discs come in 650-megabyte and 800-megabyte versions,
while recordable DVD-ROM discs can hold up to 4.71 gigabytes. Recordable
discs come with two designations: “-R” for discs that can be written to
only once and “-RW” for discs that can be written to and read from
multiple times. They are best suited for back up data for future or
later purposes. If your laptop doesn’t have a Disk drive then you could
use a USB Flash drive and simply drag and drop your files onto that.
Portable external hard drives: They come with a USB
cable to plug into your computer’s USB port, but have the storage
capacity of a computer’s internal hard drive. They are convenient for
backing up large amounts of data on a regular basis; many come
pre-installed with data backup software.
Online backup systems: Where data is backed up onto a
remote server. Online backup is offered by companies that specialize in
the service or by Internet service providers as part of their service
package. The amount of backup capacity available depends on the provider
and how much server space you can afford to buy.
Your computer data can be backed up using one of several methods, below that are easy to do:
Copying and pasting the data: This is the simplest
way and can be used when storing in either a flash drive or an external
hard drive. This can be achieved by right-clicking your data and click
on copy, then click paste inside the backup devices you intend to use.
Use your computer’s backup utility programme: Most
computer operating systems come with a backup utility programme that
supports storage media above for the backup of your files. Meanwhile,
you can plan the backup schedule in your system. To be effective, data
backups must be performed regularly. You can back up data manually or
set up an automatic backup schedule with a backup utility programme to
back up data for you on a daily or weekly basis. It is very important
that you back up at least once a month.
Software backup utility programme: You can purchase
backup utility software from other companies, which is designed to work
with any of the backup media listed above. Some freeware and shareware
backup utility programmes are available as well.
Source: Business Eye
