It really isn’t possible to over stress the importance of backing up your data.

If you are only saving your documents to one place e.g.”My Documents” then you need to do something about it now!

There are too many ways of losing your data to list them all, but some are:

  • User error – accidentally deleting it yourself
  • Software error – a program corrupts your file(s)
  • Malicious damage – a virus corrupts or deletes your file(s)
    • also some time ago I heard the term “ransomware” for the first time. Ransomware is when a cracker encrypts your data, demanding a ransom for its restoration. That’s one reason why good AV, Firewall, Spyware software is so important!
  • Hardware failure – your computer’s hard disk develops a fault
  • Theft – your computer is stolen

You might find it hard to imagine how horrible it would be if you lost files; not just documents or letters you’ve saved, but mp3s you’ve paid for, pictures you’ve taken but not printed etc. So taking a backup is vital.

I’m currently researching free backup tools. I have a (so far mental) list of criteria that I want from any backup software, so I’ll update this page when I have found some suitable candidates.

However, there is nothing to stop you backing up manually – copying the files yourself somewhere other than your computer, such as onto a USB key. You can even create backup versions by creating folders with the current date in the folder name e.g. “Backup 20080306” (Backup 6th March 2008) and then another tomorrow or next week, and another later on. You can delete the first folder you created, when you have another 2 or 3 later folders with all your files backed up inside.

It’s worth making at least one manual copy of important files even if you have an automatic backup in place. Otherwise when a problem occurs you may find either that it hasn’t worked, it has overwritten the last version checked with a corrupted version, or the version saved is so old/irrelevant that it’s no good to you.

An automated backup is fine for most of our every day files, but when it’s an important file, or one that will take ages to recreate, I think it’s good to know where the latest backup is.

I’ve lost data myself by having a lax attitude to backups in the past, so always think it’s worth a reminder to save the time, expense and exasperation of data loss!

EDIT: I followed up this post with Still haven’t backed up your data?