Easy ways to back up your computer, Mac & PC
Easy ways to back up your computer, Mac & PC. We have been asked numerous times about how our customers (business and personal) can backup and protect their data. This is a basic explanation of how it can be done. Some of our customers are experiencing very stressful moments with their data storage and backup solutions and have to use data recovery experts to retrieve their information. We have encountered several people who use an external hard drive connected to their computer, and they are working exclusively off that external hard drive, which is their only copy of the data. If you are doing that, you need to stop what you are doing and make a copy of that drive ASAP.
Don’t ONLY use USB external hard drives to backup.
Even if you copy all the contents of the external hard drive to another computer, you always need at least two or more copies of your data on different storage devices in case one fails. What people don’t realize is that a lot of hard drive manufacturers use their worst hard drives in the external hard drive enclosures; it’s usually all about price and not dependability; even if you pay a higher-than-normal price, it doesn’t mean you have and better hard drive. Something else to consider is if you back up your data onto many drives and leave those drives on your desk or other unprotected spots in your home or office, it doesn’t protect your data from fire, floods, theft, or other disasters. It would be best to have a dependable, safe, off-site cloud backup solution.
Always make sure you have a good backup Mac or PC without errors
Any backup is better than none; I believe you can’t have too many backups. Always ensure you have a newer, complete, error-free backup before you delete an older one. Several times, I have had customers do backups on their computer or server for months, and then they crash to discover that the backups are unusable.
If you need your Data, scroll down to “Dependable Off-Site Cloud Backup Solution.”
If you don’t back up at all?
Below are easy ways to backup your Windows and, or Mac computer
Keep in mind the Windows and Mac Backup solutions below. If you don’t remove your backups and store them in a safe place, they can be stolen or destroyed by fire, floods, or other natural or man-made disasters.
On your Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 computers, a backup program creates a backup of your data on your hard drive. It’s in your control panel and will back up your computer data to an external hard drive. In Windows 7, you left-click on the start button on the bottom left of your monitor, then left-click on “control panel,” then click on “System and security,” and now click on “Backup and Restore.” At this point, click on the “setup backup” link to the right of the box; now, you click on the external hard drive you want to back up to and click on “next.” In the “Review, your backup setting” window, click “Save settings and run backup,” and you’re done.
On Windows 8.1 and 10, after you plug in your external hard drive to your computer, you left-click the white window icon on the bottom left of your screen and then left-click on the Settings icon, which looks like a gear.
Then, you click on the “Update and Security ” button at the bottom of the window. On the left of the window, click “Backup,” on the right, you will need to left-click “+ Add a drive.” Click on your external hard drive, and you’re done. You can use other storage devices like NAS (Network Attached Storage) Server and other network devices.
Mac’s Time Machine Backup
HOME COMPUTER SYSTEMS
McIntosh or Mac computers have a straightforward and robust backup solution, and it’s called Time Machine. It is straightforward to start and configure. All you do is plug in an external hard drive and wait a moment. Then a window (pictured above) will open and ask, “Do you want to use (Name of Your backup Drive) to back up with Time Machine Backup?” you click on “Use as Backup Disk,” and you’re done. Time Machine will back up your user library data folders, programs, and settings.
You can also use other devices like NAS (Network Attached Storage) Server or another online storage device. So if your Mac hard drive dies, all you have to do is get your Mac repaired with a new drive or get a new Mac if need be, and you can restore from your Time Machine backup, and you are back in business just like you were before the problem.
If you need your data, we recommend this to our business and personal customers.
Truly a Dependable Off-Site Cloud Backup Solution! Crash Plan Backup Service
So, to start, we have used many off-site cloud backup solutions, and we found that they are not all created equal. The one that we have been recommending to our customers for years and using ourselves for our business and personal use is Crash Plan Backup Service.
We have no connection or affiliation with them, and if you click on the hyperlink, we don’t get any money. We will recommend them until we find something better. Crash Plan has several reasons why we use and recommend them:
- Free 30-Day Trial: You can use their service to see if you like it without giving them a credit card number.
- HIPA Compliant: Your data is encrypted from when it leaves your computer and is also encrypted while on the cloud servers. Doctors and Medical facilities can use this service to back up their patients’ data.
- Backups in Layers: If you have an Excel spreadsheet or a QuickBooks database on Monday that is corrupt and will not open, but it worked great last Friday, all you have to do is log in to your Crash Plan account and download it from Friday’s backup, and you are up and running.
- You can use your mobile device to retrieve your data.
- It will backup to an external hard drive simultaneously as the cloud backup.
- Truly Unlimited Storage: No storage limits, no bandwidth throttling, and no excuses.
- Varied Plans for Business and Personal Use: You can install Crash Plan on your servers, workstations, and personal computers so you will retain all your data.
This is just some brief instructions on how to backup if you don’t know how and an alternative for dependable cloud off-site backups. If you have any questions about this post, email us at info@ballardcomputer.com or go to https://ballardcomputer.com, and we will be happy to answer them.
