Articles tagged: backing up
Why Windows Backup Isn’t What You Think It Is
For one thing, it doesn’t back up Windows. For another it can make a mess of your folders.
Should I Partition My Hard Disk?
Partitioning, or splitting a single physical hard drive into multiple drives, has pros and cons. I’ll look at those and make a recommendation.
Dealing With Inexplicable Change?
Yes, I deal with frustrating changes too. It’s not that I never get frustrated; it’s what I choose next that makes for a much happier experience.
How Do I Backup OneDrive Files?
You shouldn’t rely on OneDrive as the only place for your files. Backing them up elsewhere is important, but there may be bumps in the road.
How to Avoid Losing Data No Matter What
Another day, another story of data loss. The frustrating thing is that it doesn’t have to happen.
Should I Disconnect My Backup Drive When I’m Not Backing Up?
Some people disconnect their backup drive when not backing up because they fear ransomware. I explain why that’s a Really Bad Idea.
Don’t Rely on System Restore
System Restore doesn’t restore your system and has proven itself too unreliable to count on.
How to Back Up Encrypted Data
Encrypting your data is important for security, but it also adds risk that’s easy to overlook when backing up.
Can I Rely on My Cloud Service’s Backups?
You can rely on online services for many things, but it’s unwise to rely on them too much.
What External Drive Should I Get?
I’ll review the characteristics of external drives and include a couple of specific recommendations.
Should I Use RAID for Backup?
RAID is a valuable technology for improving disk speed and fault tolerance, but it is in no way a replacement for backing up.
How to Back Up Photos and Never Lose Them Again: the Steps You Need to Take
Follow these steps to avoid losing precious and irreplaceable memories.
What Backup Program Should I Use?
Backing up your computer’s data is critical. What backup program should you use? There are many, but pragmatically, the best is whatever you’ll actually use.
Why Don’t You Back Up Your Computer?
Backups are one way you can protect yourself from everything from hardware failure to virus infections. So why don’t you back up?
What Can We Learn from Mat Honan?
Mat Honan is a reporter for Wired magazine whose digital life was effectively destroyed due to account hacks and lax security policies. There are important lessons here.
Can I Back Up Files to a Separate Partition on the Same Hard Disk?
It’s tempting to back up to a separate partition, because it’s somewhat like another disk. The problem is, it’s not. You could be risking your data.
How To Reduce System Restore Disk Space Usage
System Restore is allocated a certain amount of space on your hard disk. If that’s excessive, you can use less space, but at the cost of fewer restore points.
Do I Need to Make a New Rescue Disc Every Time My Backup Software Updates?
If you don’t have rescue media, you can use another machine to make it. You certainly don’t need to make one every time you back up or update the software.
How To Keep an External Hard Drive Useful and Healthy Longer
My best practices for external hard drives concern software, hardware, and — you guessed it — backing up.
How Do I Create a New Machine Image?
When you get a new machine, creating a new machine image backup as soon as you can is a convenient way to reinstall should you ever need to.
Let’s Get More People to Back Up
Nothing can prevent or side-step issues like properly configured backups. In this overview I want to encourage more people to back up. You can help.
How do I protect the files on a portable hard drive?
The answer to this is simple. If it’s only in one place… it’s not backed up!
Can I backup one computer to another?
Your computers are probably already attached over your home network. You just need to “share” them.
Why did my pictures disappear?
Think of your computer’s hard drive as a temporary solution for any files. It’s not a matter of if things will disappear, but when. Regular readers can guess what I’m going to say next…
Archiving – What it is and why you need to start
As our lives become more and more digital – from digital documents to photographs and videos – it’s time to become a little more intentional about how we keep and manage all the digital data that we’re accumulating. It’s time to think about archiving.
Is It Better to Use Incremental or Differential Backups?
Incremental and differential backups store your data changes differently. Ultimately, the difference is one of granularity and managing disk space. But the biggest thing is that you are backing up regularly and happy with the results.
How Do I Automatically Clean Out My Accumulation of Backups?
Many backup programs allow you to specify that old backups be deleted. It’s not always obvious how, so I’ll show you in Macrium Reflect.
Can I Simply Copy Everything on My Drive in Case Something Bad Happens?
There are in fact utilities that can do an actual clone of your computer, but I would prefer you move to a more traditional image backup system.
Is My Data Safe in an Online Backup Program?
Whenever we use an online service, such as an online backup, we’re trusting that they’re doing what they say they do: keeping our information secure.
If There’s Only One Copy, It’s Not Backed Up
Not a day goes by that I don’t get a question from someone in trouble; trouble that could have been completely avoided by having a simple backup.
