Bits'n'Bytes

Tip 14

I often get asked how often computers should be backed up, or even asked how important backups are. My standard answer is, that depends. It depends on what you do, how often you do it, and how important your information is to you. Standard home users add information, like pictures or music, to their computers only occasionally. So, I tell them, that's how often you should back up your computer. Business users should back up every day.

Back ups are necessary because there are just so many bad things that can happen to your data. Power spikes and brown outs, here in the North, are common. Both are hard on the sensitive electronic components in computers. Complete failure of any of a number of parts in your computer can cause you to lose access to your data. Viruses can mess with your data in some serious ways. Newer viruses, called Ransomware 2.0 are especially nasty. These viruses encrypt your data with a random key. One copy of this key is sent to the virus writers so they can decrypt the data if you pay up. If you don't pay, and sometimes even if you do, your data can only be recovered from back up. There is no way to unlock your data without a key, so you probably will need that backup copy.

Save yourself the headaches of having to deal with ransomeware. Back up your data – often!

Thanks for reading!

Until next week, I'm Computer Dave