Why Backing Up Your Data Is Important

When working with computers, making regular backups is one of the most important procedures. Many people will use a single computer or laptop extensively, saving all their family pictures and videos, as well as important text documents, without realizing that having them saved only in one place is quite dangerous.

Hard drives do eventually fail and, without a backup, it is often impossible or exceptionally costly to recover the data on it.

Generally, when an item is deleted in Windows, as well as many other operating systems, the file can be recovered. Providing it has not been overwritten, the file is still present on the hard-drive and a number of tools exist to recover the file. Even items added to the recycling bin and deleted or those deleted directly can usually be found and recovered by these programs.

However, when the hard-drive itself fails, these programs will not work and the data is typically lost. Providing you can find an identical hard-drive, with the same circuit board controller and firmware, it is sometimes possible to swap them out. This is quite costly though and requires finding an identical hard-drive. There are, of course, companies that specialize in this type of data recovery, but it is typically prohibitively expensive for a non-commercial user and is not always effective, depending on why the hard-drive failed.

Instead of waiting for a hard-drive to fail and then typically being out of luck in regards to being able to recover files, it is better to have a regular backup method in place. Perhaps the easiest type of backup method is to use an external hard-drive and transfer files periodically over the hard-drive. This can be done manually, although many hard-drives, like those produced by Seagate, offer an automatic backup program that can identify files that have been modified and only copy ones that have changed since the last backup.

It is important to keep in mind that external hard-drives fail too, so the device should be regularly checked and ideally multiple backups used.

Another option is to backup data to a DVD. This, however, has several limitations. For instance, even the largest DVDs can not hold as much as an external hard-drive and for someone with a lot of pictures and video, it is easy to fill up a DVD. Another disadvantage is that DVD's can only be used once.

It is, of course, possible to create a re-writable DVD, but these have a significantly lower life-span and are not as stable as a single-burn DVD. Even a single-burn DVD has a lifespan and other factors, such as scratches and wear and tear can reduce the lift even more.

While DVDs can be effective at backing up, they should typically be part of a supplemental backup scheme.

Another way to backup ones files is to use an online offsite backup system, which many like to refer to as 'sending it to the cloud.' This involves using a service that backs up data to a managed web-server, which uses redundant arrays to protect data and, in most cases, is able to tell when a file has been modified. This can be great, especially for business, but it is important to take security into account, because this is often not directly encrypted, meaning a security breach at the company could expose personal files.

Jamie is a writer who focuses on technical issues, such as computers and online website development. When diagnosing a hardware issue, such as a faulty hard-drive or bad screen, contacting a local computer specialist is a good idea. For Wake Country, which is located in North Carolina, Raleigh Computer Repair is one option, serving most cities in and around Wake County. They remove viruses, fix laptops, and preform many other computer related services. This includes website design, which is available for both businesses and personal users.