Having one or more backups of your files is very important. Nevertheless, for many, it is something you first think about when the need for backup arises. It’s a shame because backups must be secured before their need arises. Losing your important documents, family photos, videos, and other files stored on your computer is no fun. In this post, we suggest ensuring you have a backup of your files to avoid having to bet on a successful data recovery later.
Backup on the external hard drive
A widespread backup method is to have an external hard drive and copy your files onto it. It is usually a reasonably manual process and naturally requires that it be done on an ongoing basis. The external hard drive is connected to the computer with a cable. For some, this solution is practical because you can take the external hard drive with you, and safer. After all, the files are only on the computer and the external hard drive. If you only need to back up a few individual files, this can be done on a USB stick.
Automated backups with NAS server
NAS stands for Network Attached Storage and can be translated to storage connected to the Internet. A NAS server is usually a server resembling a desktop computer in your home or office. You can use a NAS server for many things, and one of these things is automated backups. If your NAS server is set up correctly, it will automatically update backups whenever you change files and folders on your computer. It is, therefore, a fully automatic solution that you do not have to deal with on an ongoing basis. However, you should remember that your backups can only be found on this server – so if the server fails or is stolen, you lose your backups.
Backup in the cloud
When you talk about putting files in the cloud, the files are uploaded to a server and can be accessed from the Internet. This can either be done manually or automatically. The manual solution will be to upload the desired files to the platform you wish to use. Like the first solution, however, it requires that you do it continuously so that your backup is up-to-date. The automatic solution will be that your platform offers a program that functions as a regular folder system on your computer. In the future, you will use this folder system for your files instead of storing them locally on the computer. It takes a bit of getting used to but is very practical. The intelligent thing is that the files are always synchronized in the cloud, and if the computer burns down and cannot be saved, all the files can still be saved. Many platforms also have a built-in backup function, which means that even if the files are deleted, they can be recreated for, for example, 30 days.
There are many platforms, but some of the popular ones are:
- iCloud
- Google Drive
- Dropbox
- Amazon Drive
- Backblaze
- Microsoft Onedrive
- Amazon s3
- Box Cloud