I write this post after a few years of experience dealing with my own and other people's computers. It is absolutely crucial and necessary to have any form of backup where you can store your personal and business data such as pictures, music and other documents which represent a certain emotional and financial value to you.
When you have just one computer at home or in your business and everything is running perfectly your mind does not recognize a certain danger which can appear at any moment of your computer's life. One day you open your computer and your hard drive is dead or just about to die. If you do not have any backup you are in trouble not because your data is lost forever as this is almost impossible, but because the data recovery is a very expensive process and you have no warranty that your data comes back to you in 100%.
The easiest way to secure yourself from this problem is buying a big memory stick 32GB or an external hard drive which can be attached to your computer to update your external storage.
Comparing costs of both processes is very simple:
1) extra hard drive or memory stick costs up from £15 to £80
2) professional data recovery minimum £200
Everyone who's experienced a hard drive recovery process knows perfectly what I am talking about. And to those who never have this issue I can only say that prevention is much cheaper than emergency.
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Just trying the free (local disc only) version of Crash Plan. it wants a day and a half to do just my non-image files.
Now can someone please tell me where I put the second backup 2Tb drive that i hid before i went away in March?
Yes the initial backup takes a while, but it's totally unobtrusive and once you're set up you won't notice it. I started with another online backup provider and found it a little resource heavy. I don't think you'll have cause to regret using CrashPlan.
I just periodically copy " My Documents" onto DVD. Do I need to do more ?
Depends how inconvenient it is to you if the disk was to expire and you have to reinstall everything. Depending on the email client you use this may not back up your email. If you use gmail, hotmail or another 'cloud' provider then that won't be an issue. If you have photos on your PC then bear in mind that they're in My Pictures rather than My Documents.
But if you just write the occasional Word document then what you do may well be enough.
My Pictures are in a folder within My Documents and I guess my e-mails are held by BT as I can access them from any computer. So I should be relatively ok then. Thanks.
My computer keeps on urging me to update a Dell data safe thingie. Does this seem a good option? Would it save everything? Would it be private?
Many thanks for any thoughts.
Marian
Hi Marian
What do you mean by update a Dell data safe thingie?
Marek
On my new computer I keep getting these messages: 'Welcome to Dell Data Safe Online Thank you for selecting a 2GB one year Free Package!' or 'Upgrade your Dell Data Safe Online!'
I just ignore these but perhaps they would be some kine of backup and OK?
With so many corporations like supermarkets and Google collecting information from me I didn't want to share any more than I could help, but perhaps that's not very sensible. But do I want Dell to know my bank log-in etc etc?
Sorry to dither like this and thank you.
Hi Marian
I would buy myself an external hard drive or memory stick and regularly update your the most important and strategically necessary information. This 2GB of free storage is only extra catch from Dell to keep your contact with them. The fact is that you cannont treat this as regular backup storage as the size is comparable with a little memory stick which you could buy in any shop.
Personally I would delete this message from start-up of your computer and find different source of backup in the real meaning of this phrase.
If there is any issue or you do not know what to do just let me know.
Oh Marek thank you VERY much for your helpful advice especially as you confirm what I had suspected!
I will get proper backup as you advise.
Thank you again
Marian
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