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For many people, computers have become a daily necessity. We use them for work, for correspondence and for entertainment. Many of the files are important documents and losing them would cost us time and money. Backups are the best way to prevent their permanent loss. Many people think of backups as something large companies or computer geeks do. Or they might plan on doing it when the get the chance. Every one of those people has either already lost data due to some kind of problem with their system or they will one day. Every piece of computer equipment has a lifespan and is going to fail one day or another. On that day, one of two things will happen. You'll either suffer the grief that comes with losing financial information, passwords, music collections, personal photographs and all the software you've purchased. Or, you can repair or replace the computer and restore from the backups you've been making regularly. The latter is an annoyance, the first a disaster. There are a number of things that can cause data loss. There's the obvious hardware failures, where something in the computer breaks down but there are also things such as floods, fires or even your dog bumping the power off button at the wrong moment. You could also be the victim of a virus or spyware that wipes out all your files. Having that data stored in a backup is often the only way to get it back. And even if it can be recovered by a data recovery service, it can cost thousands of dollars for them to do the work. What Do You Need To Backup? For the average user, it's usually not necessary to backup every file on the computer, which would require large storage space. But at bare minimum home users should backup personal files and irreplaceable software. Spreadsheets with financial records not easily available from other sources, legal documents, work-in-progress... the list is large. But backups need not. The easiest way to backup your files is to use the software that comes with most operating systems. Windows includes one, as does Mac OS X, Linux and others. These programs are usually pretty straightforward and it's just a matter of selecting the files and folders you want to save. Many of them can even be scheduled to run in the middle of the night or some other time you're not using your computer. If you want something a little more powerful, there are a number of backup program you can purchase. These programs offer features such as only backing up files that have changed since the last backup, or those that have changed since a particular date. Some files are a little tougher to backup, such as email. Some email software stores the messages on the server instead of on your computer. In those cases, you can usually save the messages into a file on your computer that can then be backed up. Backups can be done to any kind of removable media - writeable CD's/DVD's, removable hard drives or even the newer 'keychain' devices that plug into a USB port. Even floppy disks can still be used in many cases. Documents often take a small amount of space. Just set aside 7 disks and rotate them from week to week. Having to run a backup every day may seem like a pain in the neck, but you'll be glad you made the time on the day your computer crashes and you need a file that got wiped out.
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Data backups are just one part of an thorough computer protection plan. Find out what else you need to know to protect yourself from other internet security threats at the Security Manor website. Visit www.securitymanor.com for more helpful tips and advice.
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