By Jonathan Lugay
We have a lot of files in our computers. Over time, those files may not open properly or it will get lost. Backing up your files ensures that you have a spare copy of the original file. It is an important thing to do if you don’t want to lose your files. Think of backing up your files as making a physical copy of a file, but doing it on the computer. There are a couple ways to backup your files. Also, you backing up your files is simple enough. How often you should backup depends on what you are doing.
There are a few ways to backup your files. One way is to buy USB flash drives from any electronic store or online to backup your files. USB flash drives are really cheap to buy and usually come with around 8 Gigabytes of space or more. If you don’t have a lot of files to backup, then USB Flash Drives is right for you.
You can also buy external hard drives from the electronic store or online to backup your files. External hard drives are more expensive than USB flash drives, but they have more space to put your files in. On average, an external hard drive would have around 500 Gigabytes of space or more. I recommend getting an external hard drive if you have a lot of files to backup.
Another way is to backup them in a Cloud Storage. Cloud Storage is where you backup your files over the internet. Your files are backed up in a server that a host company has. Some of them are free, while others you have to pay for in order to backup your files. If you want to backup your files on a cloud storage, do some research on which one you want to use.
Once you acquire a way to backup your files, it is simple to back them up. For USB flash drives and external hard drives, just plug it in on your computer, find your external hard drive or USB flash drive icon on your computer and open it. Once you have it open, you can drag your files to that drive. The computer will make a copy of them. Depending on what the size of your file is, it will either be quick or take a long time. While your computer makes a copy in that drive, do not unplug your external hard drive or USB flash drive. If you do, it would mess up your file. After you are done copying and putting your files in your external hard drive or USB flash drive, you can unplug it.
The reason why we need to backup our files is because every day, there is a small chance that the file you want to open, won’t open anymore. If you don’t backup your files and that happens, you are out of luck. Backing up the files ensures you a copy of the file just in case something goes wrong.
How often you want to backup your files depends on what you are doing. I recommend backing up your files once a week or everyday if you create an important file.
Every day we are creating a lot of files. If we don’t backup those files, they will be gone forever or they won’t open anymore.
Jonathan Lugay is a member of the Computer Technology Senior Seminar course and is planning on a career in Computer Engineering. The online version of this article is at jonathanjlugay.net/Beacon-Article.php