Research has found that just 7% of people back up on a daily basis, with just over one quarter backing up at least once a month. Despite many using their computers daily, creating new data and adding to their files, these figures show that a staggering number of people are not backing up regularly (and many do not at all).
Justin Briere, of Data Memory Systems, commented: “It is imperative that people understand the importance of backing up their files as often as they can. The risk of losing all of their files is very real; malware is rife nowadays, and there is no telling when an undetected error could bring the whole system down. Investing in an external hard drive or a way to back up files to an outside resource should be common practice to everyone who uses their computer regularly; otherwise they may find themselves in a sticky situation being unable to access important information, or simply losing many years’ worth of memories.”
External hard drives are a great back up solution. Simply plug them into a device, whether PC or Apple, and follow the steps to back up the contents of a computer onto the drive. If you ever need to back up your hard drive, or even just restore a single corrupt file, this is very simple to do in a few clicks.
Backing up can also occur on a small scale. To keep a single file or folder safe, quickly transfer them to a flash memory device so that you have two separate copies of the files/folders. You can also use flash memory devices to quickly transport data from one computer to another, i.e. from your laptop to your desktop.