BYTE ME!
Making life with your electronic servants more tolerable

Mike Beberman © 2008

What do you mean you accidentally deleted all of my digital pictures?

This is a question you never want to have to answer. I know, you are pretty good at this computer stuff. You transfer pictures from your camera to your computer, you download music and movies, file your taxes, send emails, create work memos, and you know your way around the web. What else is there? The computer does everything that you want it to do … until something bad happens.

It’s time to talk about backing up your data. If you have never been told to do this before, don’t feel bad. Even many people who know how, just don’t take the time to do it. That said, please read on: “Backing up” data simply means making a copy of your files, to ensure that you will not lose the data that is important to you. Although you can create a copy of your files on your hard drive, that would only protect you against damage to that file. You also need protection against damage to the computer or its software.

And that’s why you must create a “backup” of your data on some *other* device or media, besides your hard drive. Let’s take a look at the what, when and how.

I believe it is better to have too much rather than too little. Back up any file on your computer that is important to you. If you think that you may have a copy somewhere else but you are not sure, back it up.

Learning the different filename extensions (suffixes such as .jpg, .bmp. etc.) lets you do a search and make sure that you found the things that are important to you. The most common types of files and their extensions include:

Word documents --- filename.doc

Music files --- filename.mp3

Photos & pictures --- filename.jpg / filename.bmp / filename.gif

There are many more types of files that you may use and different programs used to create the files dictate their file extension suffixes. If you are not sure what kind of file your house budget is (or favorite song, birthday party picture, etc.), click on the file name with the right mouse key, and select Properties. That window will list the type of file.

Ok, now that we know what to back up, there are quite a few affordable and reliable backup solutions available. Many computers come with a CD burner or DVD burner built in, making it easy to burn your own disc copies. Windows XP and Vista have utilities built into them for backing up data. These discs will hold between 700 megabytes up to more than 4 gigabytes of data – so you may need quite a few discs to back up all your files.

For a higher capacity solution, there are a couple of external devices that offer easy backups. A Flash Drive is a USB (Universal Serial Bus) device that you can carry and easily plug into a different computer. Copying the files is just a matter of drag-and-dropping them to the Flash Drive when it is plugged in. The only real shortcoming here is the limited size of the Flash Drive -- up to 16 gigabytes storage capacity.

In my opinion, an external Hard Drive is the best way to go for data redundancy. External Hard Drives offer greater data storage capacity than both Flash Drives and DVDs yet they are also portable. Most External Hard Drives cost under $200. and can be used the same way that you would use a Flash Drive. Some External Hard Drives, such as drives made by Western Digital and Seagate, come with backup software that will backup your data automatically on a regular schedule.

Any of these solutions will help to keep your data safe. If you are not sure what the best solution is for you, check with a professional for guidance. Don’t risk losing all of your important files . . . back that thing up!