Backing Up One's Files - An Introduction To Backup Media

By Author: Nermin Hadzikadunic
Total Articles: 4
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Some people can say that they use their computer for work. Some of them are the data entry professionals, web developers, programmers, accountants, graphics designers, and software engineers. However, most people use their computer for personal use as opposed to business. They would probably use the computer for some school projects and dissertation papers for graduate students. They could be encoding projected financial growth on spreadsheet applications or they can be editing videos to upload to video sharing websites. Still some would use the computer for saving pictures of their loved ones and other sentimental memories about their life. When a malware attack comes, these people cringe not only about losing the computer for an extended amount but more of the threat of losing these personal files. These problems and stresses however can be remediated by the time-old adage of backing up files.

Backing up files essentially means making an extra copy of these personal and private memories to plan for an eventual accident in the future. For all the wonderful things that they can do, at the end of the day computers are ...
... still electronic machines and like all electronic machines their parts can still fail. The part in particular that would be devastating to do down is the hard drive because that is where all the data is stored. If a virus compromises an operating system, then it's almost as if the hard drive has gone awry - users still have the data on the disk, but without an operating system, there's no way to access them.

There are several ways to back up files. Here are a few of them.

The most economical way to back up files would be to use compact discs (CDs) and digital versatile discs (DVDs). These can store minimal amounts of data - CDs have a cap of about 700 megabytes while DVDs have a cap of around 4.8 gigabytes. Dual-layer disks have twice the maximum capability of regular discs. These are dirt cheap and easy to acquire to the point that some companies just give away copies of these. However they are easily scratched and can be misplaced around the house. A CD writer and CD drive are also needed to write and read the CDs, respectively. Take that in consideration when choosing to back up files onto optical media format.

Another one is to use an external hard drive. It is what it sounds like - a hard drive, but it's not usually found inside the computer. It's a piece of electronic wizardry and storage that one can use to bring around and carry data in. These have huge amounts of storage capability - the cheaper ones can have capacities of 160 gigabytes, and they scale up to a thousand gigabytes (aka a terabyte). The downside is that they are more expensive than regular discs. Furthermore, they are more expensive than internal hard drives because of their architecture. There are several more ways of backing up files but those two are the most common.

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