Backing up Important Information – Some Free and Inexpensive Ways
We all know we should back up certain information on our hard drives…but how often do you actually do it? I can tell you that I’m not as good as I should be, and I almost lost a lot of important information because of it! Coincidentally, I ordered a new Dell laptop a week ago today. (It was actually a great deal, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow)
Well, Wednesday morning, I go to turn on my computer…and I get a nice blue screen of death! An hour later I had it up and running…and the first thing I did was back up absolutely everything I needed. I haven’t turned the laptop off since. Yes, I’m scared it won’t turn back on. Also, since I know my new laptop is supposed to come in some time today, I figure this way I can make sure I get everything moved onto the new one before I lose my information.
This seems to be a great time to talk about backing up your important files, and different low cost or even free alternatives to do so.
If there are only a few very important files that you need to back up, you might just want to use a flash drive. You can get them for under $20, or even for free most of the time after rebate. While they don’t hold that much information, they are nice and small and can easily hold your most important files.
The next step up would be to use CD’s or DVD’s. Both are pretty inexpensive. CD’s are just a few cents each when you buy them in bulk, and can each hold about 700MB of information. DVD’s can hold a lot more, but of course cost a little bit more per blank DVD. Either way, they are pretty cheap, and are a great way to back up files.
Next would be to get an external hard drive. You can easily back up your entire computer plus a whole lot more with an external hard drive. These days, you can get a 500GB external hard drive for about $100 when it’s on sale, so you don’t have to spend too much to get more than enough space to store all of your files.
If you want to have the safety of keeping your backups off site – so that if something were to happen to your home, your data would still be safe, there are also many free/inexpensive options. There are many websites you can go to that you can upload your data where it will be safely stored for free, or for a small monthly payment.
No matter which way you choose, you shouldn’t have to spend much (or any) money, and you can save yourself a lot of grief and heartache if your hard drive ever crashes. Forgetting about the rest of my files, I can’t tell you how upset I would have been if I lost all my vacation pictures!
Here are some similar posts you may be interested in:- Backup Your Hard Drive – Free or Close to it!
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- I won another contest!
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