It’s True: Your Computer is a Time Bomb…
If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard it a million times, and it’s true: The chances are, at some point, your computer hard drive will fail and you will lose data. If you don’t want to lose important documents, pictures, or that report you’ve been writing for the past three days, you have to backup your computer’s contents regularly!
Last week, my computer refused to boot. I don’t know what happened, but as it turned out, I had to reinstall the entire operating system. My entire computer was wiped clean. Fortunately for me, I backup my computer fairly regularly. I think I lost a few recent bookmarks, and maybe a file or two that I didn’t care about. But because I regularly back up my important files, I didn’t lose anything major. Still, I need to backup more frequently!
The only thing I suffered was a bit of an inconvenience. I had to reinstall some plugins, register software and set up all of my preferences the way I wanted them again, but I can’t complain too much. All I had to do was connect my external hard drive and drag applications and files back to my computer. I needed to download updated versions of a couple programs anyway, so I did that, too. Now I am back in business.
This is a really important reminder. As we store and more of our pictures and other essential data on computers, a solid backup strategy is essential. Most people do not back up their hard drive. I must admit that I don’t do it enough. I will need to be more thorough about this.
One of the interesting features that is coming in the next version of the Mac OS X operating system is Time Machine. It will keep track of your system and allow you to easily go back and restore any files, preferences, or data that you might have lost. I am pretty sure that Windows XP has a similar feature, too. But it is only useful if you backup to a separate hard drive.
Backing up your information on CDs or DVDs is also useful, but not convenient, so you probably won’t do it often. I recommend that you go out and get a basic external hard drive. They are inexpensive and easy to use; simply plug them in and use your favorite software to back your computer up. Setting up auto backup is best. Unfortunately, I haven’t being doing that lately, but I will start again.
Backing up your computer is a simple and important practice–unless you don’t mind losing everything you’ve saved your computer. Take a look at what’s on your computer. Can you afford to lose everything? All it takes a hiccup–and it can all go up in smoke.
Don’t tempt fate. Backup, backup, backup.
