If you haven’t backed up your computer’s data yet, you should do that soon. Many people have never had a computer crash before, so they likely assume it will never happen to them. However, computers can break down at any time, and if your documents are not saved in a separate secure location, you could end up losing hours or even days of work.
Follow this guide to back up your documents so you can easily access them in case your computer has major issues.
Create Copies of Your Data
Before you do anything else, you should create copies of all the important documents you want to back up. Go through your files and create a copy of any document you want to keep safe. With these copies on standby you will have something to fall back on if your computer has a problem.
It would be wise to organize these files into folders so you can easily find them in the case of an actual emergency.
Use an External Hard Drive or USB Drive
One of the best methods of backing up computer data is to utilize an external hard drive or a USB flash drive. Hard drives connect to your computer via a USB cable, while USB flash drives are connected directly to the device. Both offer a substantial amount of storage space and are effective tools for storing backups. You can connect these drives to other computers so you can continue your work on other machines.
Note that some external hard drives may not be compatible with your computer. Make sure you do research on the different hard drives that are available, so you can find one that is compatible with the computer or laptop you own.
Sign Up for Cloud Services
Cloud services are also popular with people who want to create backups for their computer documents. By using a cloud service you can upload your data via the Internet where it will be stored until you need to download it back onto your computer. Any data uploaded to these services will be protected with powerful encryptions that are difficult for people to hack.
Some of the free cloud services you should check out include Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive. Though there are storage limits in place on these services, you shouldn’t have to worry if you primarily upload things like Word documents. You can get additional storage for a fee.
Back Up Your Data Often
We recommend that you back up your data as often as you can. As you continue to work on new projects, you will create new documents that should be backed up as well. In addition, as you update your older files, the ones in storage may become obsolete.
It’s wise to back up your data at least once a week so your back up solution has the most up-to-date files. If you fail to do this, you might have to refer to an older version of a document, which will require you to redo some of your work.
Sponsored by: