Top 3 Reasons to Back up your Computer

Top 3 Reasons to Back up your Computer

Top 3 Reasons to Back up your Computer

If you follow me on Instagram you know that last night I had to transfer some files to a new external hard drive because one of mine was full. Today I’m going to give you the top 3 reasons to back your computer up and provide some great links and products in helping you do so.

1. We make mistakes – User error has to be the NUMBER 1 reason you should back up your data. We are human and we make mistakes. There is NOTHING like working on a file and making a mistake and deleting it OR corrupting it. If you don’t have a copy you are just messed up.

2. Machines & Hardware Fail – We hate it but it happens from time to time. I love having peace. If for some reason my MAC decides to never come on again, I have all my information stored somewhere else. ALL OF IT.

3.  Mother Nature – I have had my home flooded and my main laptop was destroyed. I was devastated because EVERYTHING was on my macbook. There was no way to reverse the water damage and trust me I tried.

What do I use to make sure my items are safe?

1. Seagate Backup Plus 4TB– This is new in my arsenal and I already love it. I have two external hard drives and I’ll explain my workflow later in this post.
2. G-Technology G-Drive 1TB – I used this hard drive to replace the external I had before I got my MAC. The one I was using wasn’t compatible and I didn’t want to have to reformat it and risk loosing all my information.
3. Verbatim DVD+R Recordable Disks – I LOVE these because they hold 8GB of data. That’s pretty amazing.

What’s my workflow? I’m paranoid about loosing data so bear with me lol.

1. Backblaze.com I backup CONSTANTLY using Backblaze. It runs in the background so there is really nothing for me to do. It also backs up my external hard drives.  I’ve used both backblaze  and carbonite and I like backblaze better.
2. Dropbox.com Dropbox also backs up in the background. It recognizes when I have new items and it loads them up. I stop every couple of days to make sure everything is organized in folders by month. Makes my life SO much easier. Once I have a new file on my external hard drive I also place it there. It’s wonderful I tell you.
3. The first two things are automatic so I don’t really have to do much there. When I have new files I transfer them to my G-Drive and work on them there.
4. Once they are edited and I’m finished with them I copy the file and transfer it to my Seagate Plus.
5. The files are then automatically added to Backblaze and Dropbox.
6. I then burn a disk using the Verbatim DVD+R and store them. I check these disks every few months to make sure they aren’t scratched or corrupted. So far I haven’t had any that won’t work and I have some that are a few years old.

That’s really it. I have YET to use the cloud or time machine. That’s on my calendar to read up on and look into next week. Do any of you use it? What are your thoughts?