Save time and money by backing up your computer

I rarely make New Year’s resolutions, but this year I have and I think it is one that is easily obtainable.  My resolution this year is to back up my computer regularly!  I’ve done a very unscientific pole and found that the majority of people I asked have NOT backed up their computer.  I confess, I’ve only backed up key files and the most recent backup I did was last September!

So how will backing up your computer save you time and money?  I’ll give the example of what happened recently to a local real estate agent where I live, we’ll call him “Bill”. Bill is a successful real estate agent and relies on his computer daily to help him with prospecting, tracking client information, etc.  He also has a side business in which he relies on his computer heavily.  Bill utilizes Facebook (a social networking tool) regularly and unknowingly picked up a particularly nasty virus which totally wiped out his computer.  Unfortunately, Bill had not backed up his computer.  He had to take it to a professional and was eventually able to get MOST of his files recovered.  When it was all said and done his computer was out of service for a full week and it cost almost $2,000 to get the files he desparately needed back.  I don’t know about you, but I can think of many other ways to spend $2,000!

The reason I haven’t performed a full back-up yet is because I really didn’t understand what all the options were.  There was a great featured article in the January 2009 SmartComputing magazine that goes into great detail on the subject (I highly reccomend this magazine for anyone interested in learning more about how computers work).  I thought I would summarize the options available and if you want any more details, feel free to contact me.  It really isn’t as complicated as I thought!

• Backup Media
  • There are several options for the media in which you save your data:  1) Disks (ie. CD’s & DVD’s), 2) USB Flash Drives, 3) External Hard Drives, 4) On-line services.
  • Each media has pros & cons.  Disks are cheap, but can be easily scratched and it takes multiple disks to do a backup. USB Flash Drives have a limited storage capacity, they are great for storing a small amount of files.  External Hard Drives are great because in the event of an emergency evacuation you can just grab and go and the storage capacity is equal to your desktop (These are more costly however, running from $150 – $300).  On-line service is great because in the event of a catastrophe you can recover the files from anywhere (price ranges from $50 – $100/year).
• Backup Software – There are many options to choose from, each with pros and cons.  The price ranges from $40 – $70 for the software.  Some of the software that was featured in the SmartComputing.com article include:  Drive Backup 9.0 Personal, True Image Home 2009, PC Backup Pro 8.0, Genie Backup Manager Home 8.0, Backup Now 5 Advanced Edition, and AutoBackup Premium.  You’ll need to look at each of the software options to decide which is right for you.
  • On-line services – Instead of purchasing software, you can subscribe to an on-line service which backs up your data via the internet.  The services featured in the SmartComputing magazine include: www.carbonite.com, www.idrive.com, www.mozy.com, www.ibackup.com, and storage.vmn.net.

That is it, really! All you have to do to save time and money is purchase the software (or subscribe to a service) and decide what storage media you want to save it to.  Once you complete the full backup (which takes the longest), you can schedule shorter incremental & differential backups regularly.

The article also details software options for recovering lost data, but I won’t go into that since everyone now knows how easy it is to save hours of frustration & lots of wasted money!  So to ensure your new year is not plagued with the hassle of lost data, make the small investment in this easily preventable solution.