Why Backups Are Important
This is an unpleasant reminder of why we do backups of our computers, smartphones and tablets. Whether it is a wildfire, earthquake, hurricane, tornado or theft, there is always a risk that the data on our gadgets might be gone in a second. So we perform two kinds of backups: 1.) we backup the entire contents of our computer hard drive to an external hard drive and 2.) we backup our important data to the Internet (the "Cloud").
Generally smartphones and tablets are syncing in some way to either our computer, the Cloud, or both. Then when we make a backup of our computer hard drive to an external hard drive we have a second copy. If we are also backing up to the Cloud then we have a third copy of some of our important data. Finally, the reason we still do a backup to an external hard drive is because if the hard drive in the computer were to stop working we would replace it with a new drive and copy the entire contents back from the external hard drive saving many hours of reinstalling software and settings.
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| Mountain Shadows neighborhood |
External Hard Drive Backup
Backing up the entire contents of your hard drive to an external hard drive is very easy these days. In Windows 7 you would use the Backup and Restore utility and on a Mac you would use Time Machine. Both utilities will copy the entire contents of your computer hard drive to the external hard drive and then copy only new and changed files as time goes on.
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| A home burnt to the ground |
Cloud Backup
The easiest way to get a Cloud backup of your important files is with Carbonite for $60 per year. This is a service that backups your files to the Internet so in case your computer and external hard drive are destroyed or stolen you would be able to recover your files from the Internet. If this ever happened to you, God forbid, you would buy a new computer, install Carbonite, and magically all your files would return.
It is true that some of the new syncing solutions for smartphones and tablets (for example Apple's iCloud service) perform a similar function with some of your data, but that might only work, for example, with your contacts and calendar and some of your photos. These syncing services certainly do not backup your entire photo library and all the documents you might have on your computer. That is where a service like Carbonite comes in.
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| The Fire Approaches the Air Force Academy |
In Summary
- Everyone should have an external hard drive backup for the entire contents of their computer hard drive.
- If you wish to have an "off-site" backup solution, install Carbonite for $60/year.
- If your smartphone or tablet is syncing it's data automatically then you might also have a "Cloud" copy of that same data that is syncing. But if you are still syncing by using a cable and manually performing the sync then the only two copies of your data are probably your device and the computer with no "off-site" copy in case of disaster.
