...Until the day you do, then it’s the most important thing in the world! Backup is one of those boring things that you have to do and yet it does nothing. Not a thing. It is completely unproductive and adds nothing to you life. Kinda like insurance. All it does is cost money and doesn’t help one bit! Until… the day that you get burgled or have a fire. THEN you are really glad you were prepared.
And ”prepared” is the key word here. While the fire is burning you can’t arrange insurance. When the bear you picked up at the local train station has already flooded your house it’s too late! And when your computer has already died, or has ransomware or there’s smoke coming from it, it’s too late.
Have you got a backup? A backup has got to be separate from your computer. There are cloud options, which just means it’s uploaded to a server somewhere in the world OR you can use a local device such as an external hard drive. The advantage of this is that you have full control over the data. This is particularly useful when you want to get it back. Downloading your entire backup could take some time e.g. a 200G backup might take 2 days to download depending on the service you were using. Cloud services usually have ongoing costs involved but are convenient. For many users the cheapest and most reliable method is a local backup to an external hard drive.
The other keyword is "boring". Doing computer backup requires an almost mechanical discipline that probably only 10% of the population have. I don’t at all. If you are absolutely fastidious then this section doesn’t apply to you. For the rest of us the answer it is to not do the backup yourself. Instead, get someone who is completely reliable and won’t ever forget – what you need is… a ROBOT! But if you don’t have a robot you can simply get your computer to remember for you.
Computer Help NZ has 2 programs that we use to help automate your backup. It just depends on your situation as to which one we’d setup. But the best thing about an automated backup is that it happens automatically. This way you have your best chance of recovery if your computer has a disaster and needs repairing or replacing.
For all your computer repairs in the Christchurch and Canterbury areas call us – Computer Help NZ 0800349669 or 0800 FIXNOW