One of the most disastrous events that can happen to a designer is the crashing of his computer. Most computer users ignore this important aspect and don’t do anything about backing up their data until their computer system crashes.
You put yourself at risk when you store valuable information on only one computer system. A lot of issues like worms, viruses, hardware problems can crop up at any time to render your music, photos and files inaccessible. This is why it is highly critical for you to ensure that you always back your data up at regular intervals. When you back up your files, you create a sort of ‘insurance policy’ for your data, thus saving you a lot of trouble.
The question is if backing up your computer data is that important, why do people neglect to back up their data respectively? The primary reason is that backing up your computer data is time-consuming. Most of the utilities you need to back up your files need constant attention and monitoring. It is a tedious process, and most users of computers prefer spending that time to get more work done on their machines.
As a designer, it is a complete catastrophe to lose your files without having any backup in place. It is, therefore, important to take a look at the best five ways to back up your important design files:
1. Burn Important Files to Compact Disk
This will necessitate having a DVD or CD burner drive on your computer. You can back up your most important files, music, and photos on CDs. If you can create two copies as backups, then the better for you, especially if the files or data does not get changed recurrently. Then store the compact discs in a safe location, preferably a safe deposit box, and you can always gain access to them in case of theft, fire incidence or crashing of your computer.
2. External Hard Drive
The portability of external hard drives as well as their affordability make them an all-time favorite for computer users worldwide. Some of these hard drives are large enough to store the entire data on your PC, and you can recover them when your system crashes or gets stolen.
3. Use Dropbox
This online tool is not just for sharing your files with coworkers. It is highly useful for storing data as well. You can store important files, documents, videos, photographs, etc. and secure them remotely. This will also, invariably enhance the flow of your work and you can be assured that in the case of any computer crash or virus attack, you will be able to gain access to such important files after that computer crash. There are free and paid services on this platform, and if you have several computers that run Dropbox, all of them will sync perfectly. Paid services include Personal plans which allow users to store up to 1 Terabyte of data, while the Business plan offers unlimited storage capacity as well as other bonuses attached.
4. Weekly Cloning
You can make use of USBs to clone your hard drive every week. You need to set aside time for this as it takes a bit of time to get done.
5. Use Backblaze
This is another tool that designers will find useful at any time for backing up the data on their systems. It is very affordable at $5 for each device per month. Backblaze will even help you to backup any data on any USB that you connect to your machine. When it comes to backing up your design files, Backblaze is your best choice as it works quietly behind the scenes. The only shortcoming Backblaze is its inability to store system files.
