Computer Backup

Computer Backup is a user insurance policy against Halloween trick or treats and other disasters. It is the key to user peace of mind regarding the preservation of user financial, personal and business files. Computer Backup may save user the hundreds or thousands of dollars it will take to recreate the lost data and to reinstall programs (applications), the Windows or Macintosh Operating System, Email and the many special program settings. User never really realize how much is lost until user fire up that key program and it does not work the way it used to. Worse user may have lost that key program and its files.Industry statistics tell us that it is not a matter of IF but WHEN user computer hard drive will fail. Therefore, computer backup is critical.Backup of the hard drive is the duplication of all or part everything that is on the user computer to another media like external hard drive, DVD or CD, backup to Zip Disk or backup to another computer over a network.

Why do computer backup? Like the financial files for user business or home, some files are simply irreplaceable. Regular backups ensure user don't lose such files. But most files could be recreated given an unlimited budget for time and effort. Consider just how much time, money, and effort it would take to recover a system whose files were destroyed by mechanical failure, a virus attack, or user error.Also consider how much money user would lose simply because of downtime. A major purpose of back up is to avoid such expenses. This is important to remember, since a strategy that costs too much time or money to implement may be counterproductive and therefore people will not perform computer backup.With today's immense drives, reinstalling a modern operating system is quite a time and labor intensive job, not to mention reinstalling and configuring dozens of applications. Unfortunately, computer users really don't understand just how labor intensive it is to restore a system from scratch without a full computer backup of the hard drive.Such a job could easily take all or most of a work day or more depending on the density of applications, data, peripheral devices and the cause of the original hard drive crash. The cost could be very expensive to do a full restore by computer consultant. Most computer users say that they could buy a new computer for that price. They are right. However they do not consider that the new computer would have nothing more than the Windows or Macintosh Operating System on it.This means that someone will still have to reinstall EVERYTHING on that new computer. Without a computer backup, user are "up the creek without a paddle" insofar as user records and files are concerned.Even if user wanted to perform backup of only data files, they may not all be in one handy location.Perhaps user computer is used only for Web research and e-mail. Then user still find it frustrating to lose all their bookmarks, cookies, settings, and e-mail addresses. Configuration settings for user applications are scattered in proprietary files, INI (initial or initialization) files, and the Registry.

Remaining are programs, drivers for hardware devices like printers and scanners, user data files (Word, Excel, financial, custom programs) and sometimes much more.The simplest computer backup strategy is to back up everything, and simplicity is essential.User may consider computer backup to an external hard drive. External, portable USB 2.0 hard drives of 40 up to 400 gigabytes or more are available. Some such drives also come with Firewire connections for both PC and Macintosh.Such portable drives can be quickly removed in an event of an emergency and may easily contain user entire business or home computing life. One such portable, external drive can be kept near the computer or server and one can be kept offsite. They can be rotated to keep them current.Hard drive prices have dropped so much that two or even three external hard drives are within the range of most businesses and home computer owners.

The laptop backpack is a relatively new trend where people use computer backpacks to replace a laptop carrying case or valise. An external hard drive can easily fit into one of the laptop backpacks. Pack the external hard drive in its original box to protect it. Therefore even when away from the office or home user have a computer backup solution. Another computer backup option is