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 resort to using data recovery experts to retrieve their information. We have encountered a number of people that use an external hard drive that is connected to their computer and they are working exclusively off of that external hard drive and that 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 just copy the full contents of the external hard drive to another computer. You always need at least 2 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 you just leave those drives on your desk or other unprotected spots in your home or office it doesn’t protect your data at all from fire, floods, theft or other disasters. That’s why you need 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 at all, and I believe you can’t have too many backups. Always make sure that you have a newer complete, error-free backup before you delete an older one. A number of times I have had customers do backups on their computer or server for months and then they crash just to find out that the backups are not usable.
If you Absolutely, Positively need your Data, then 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 with 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.
Windows Backup
On your Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 computers, there’s a backup program that creates a backup of your data on your hard drive, it’s in your control panel and it will back up to your computer data to an external hard drive. In Windows 7 yo, just left click on the start button on the bottom left of your monitor and 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 just click on the external hard drive you want to back up to and click on “next”. In the “Review, your backup setting” window just click on “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 on 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 icon at the very bottom of the window. On the left of the window left click on “Backup” and on the right, you will need to left click on “+ Add a drive”, just 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 really simple and robust backup solution, it’s called Time Machine. It is really easy 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” and you click on “Use as Backup Disk”, and you’re done. Time Machine will backup your user library data folders, your programs, and settings. You can also use other storage 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.
Absolutely Need your Data, This is What we Recommend to our Business & Personal Customers
Truly a Dependable Off-Site Cloud Backup Solution! Crash Plan Backup Service
So to start off, 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 businesses and personal use is Crash Plan Backup Service. We have no connection or affiliation with them at all 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 a number of reasons why we use and recommend them:
- Free 30 Day Trial: So you can use their service to see if you like it without having to give them a credit card number.
- HIPA Compliant: Your data is encrypted from the time your data leaves your computer and is also encrypted while on the cloud servers. Doctors and Medical facilities can use this service for backing 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 on last Friday all you have to do is log in to your Crash Plan account and download it from Fridays backup and you are up and running.
- You can use your mobile device to retrieve your data.
- Will backup to an external hard drive at the same time 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 computer so you will retain all your data.
This is just some brief instructions on how you should backup if don’t know how and an alternative for really dependable cloud off-site backups. If you have any questions about this post just email us at info@ballardcomputer.com or go to https://ballardcomputer.com and we will be happy to answer all your questions.