How to backup your digital life: hard drives, cloud-based tools and tips

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Even in the brand name, some drives are better than others. Several people on our Gear team expressed good luck with Western Digital hard drives. I like this 4 TB model ($90 on Amazon, Target price $95), which will back up this article later tonight (it will be backed up to the cloud as I type, and more content will be backed up in a minute) If you don’t mind the larger form factor, you can use the “desktop” version of Western Digital 6 TB,$141 at Amazon, $155 at Walmart).

One good thing about buying a drive for backing up data is that you don’t have to worry about drive speed. Even slower 5,400 rpm drives are fine. These slower drives are cheaper, and because the backup software runs in the background, you may not notice the slower speed.

Get the largest backup drive you can afford. Incremental backup (the way all good backup software works) saves disk space by only backing up files that have changed since the last backup. However, even so, you still need a larger drive than a PC for backup. A good rule of thumb is to get a backup drive that is twice or even three times the size of the drive in the computer.

Set and forget it

A good backup system can run without performing any operations. If a backup is necessary, it may not be necessary. These days, there is software that can automate all backup tasks.

Mac users should use Time Machine. This is a very simple software and may be the best reason to buy a Mac.Apple has Good instructions Information on how to set up Time Machine so that it will back up to your external hard drive daily. The time machine is also very smart. It will only back up files that have changed, so it will not use up all your disk space.

Windows 10 comes with what Microsoft calls “backup”, but it lacks the interface decoration of Time Machine, and it actually doesn’t seem to be used for daily backups. Although many of Time Machine’s features are in backup, it is not out of timidity to figure out them. To get the simplicity of Time Machine in Windows, you need to use third-party software.good luck r reflection, It has a free option that can meet most of your needs.

Off-site backup: all in one

The second backup I recommend is off-site. The marketing department calls it “cloud”, which is another way of saying “on someone else’s computer.” In this case, I am referring to servers in a data center far away from your home. This is a backup that covers the terrible physical destruction situation. For example, I once lost a laptop due to a lightning strike (yes, I have a surge protector, it was almost liquefied), but since my data was backed up to the cloud, I was able to restore all the data.

What you don’t need is something like Dropbox, Google Drive or Sync.com. These are great ways to share and synchronize documents, but they are not good for backups. When you make changes to files on your computer, those changes will then be synced to Dropbox. This means that if the file is damaged, the damage will be sent to Dropbox and cascaded through all backups. That’s not what you want. A good backup will never change. You copy the file and never touch it again.

Fortunately, there are many cloud backup solutions available. Some functions are integrated: after you register and download the application of the service, it is complete. This is our advice to newcomers.

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