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Speaker 1: Marshall Brain with today's question, how do you back up
Speaker 1: the hard disk drive on your home or office computer?
Speaker 1: Last week, we had a tragedy in the Brain household.
Speaker 1: Our main hard disc died. We have six people in
Speaker 1: the Brain family and a total of seven computers hooked
Speaker 1: up to the network. The hard disc on the main
Speaker 1: computer died. This is a tragedy because the main computer
Speaker 1: is the one that houses all our family files, most
Speaker 1: importantly the forty seven thousand plus photos and videos of
Speaker 1: the Brain kids growing up, but also financial records, business records,
Speaker 1: book manuscripts, and so on. The main computer then shares
Speaker 1: those files with all the other computers in the house
Speaker 1: so that everyone can access them whenever they want to. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: this turned out to be only a time tragedy rather
Speaker 1: than a family memory tragedy. It took a lot of
Speaker 1: time to replace that hard disk. It was not a
Speaker 1: memory tragedy, however, because there was a backup from the
Speaker 1: night before and we lost none of our files. If
Speaker 1: there had not been a backup copy, there would be
Speaker 1: nothing left of those forty seven thousand plus photos and
Speaker 1: all the other files that were on that hard disk,
Speaker 1: which brings up a good question. Have you backed up
Speaker 1: your computer lately, and if not, what's the best way
Speaker 1: to do it. Let's take a look at some of
Speaker 1: the possibilities. There are three ways for you to back
Speaker 1: up your hard disk. First, you can manually back it
Speaker 1: up to an external hard drive. Second, you can get
Speaker 1: an external hard drive that will automatically back it up,
Speaker 1: or third you can back get up on the internet.
Speaker 1: There are advantages and disadvantages to all three of these,
Speaker 1: so we can look at them and see what those
Speaker 1: advantages and disadvantages are. In the case of the Brain family,
Speaker 1: we use option too. I bought an external hard drive
Speaker 1: and it came with software that backs up the main
Speaker 1: computer's hard disk automatically. If you want to go to
Speaker 1: this route, go to the store and look at the
Speaker 1: different external hard drive options. You can find external hard
Speaker 1: drives just about anywhere at best Buy or New Egg
Speaker 1: or Amazon. If an external hard drive comes with software
Speaker 1: for backups, the box will talk about it. The question
Speaker 1: you will have to answer is how big of an
Speaker 1: external hard drive do you need? This depends on how
Speaker 1: many files you have on your hard disk, which you
Speaker 1: can easily discover using the Windows Explorer. And then you
Speaker 1: right click on your documents folder and choose the properties option.
Speaker 1: It'll tell you how many files you have and how
Speaker 1: big they are. Let's say that you have a hundred
Speaker 1: gigabytes of files in your documents folder. Five hundred gigabyte
Speaker 1: external hard drive would be plenty big for that, and
Speaker 1: these only cost about seventy dollars right now. So you
Speaker 1: get home, you plug the external drive into your computer,
Speaker 1: You spend a couple of minutes setting up the software,
Speaker 1: You start the backup process, and bang, your files get
Speaker 1: backed up. If you set a schedule, your files will
Speaker 1: get backed up every day. Some drives, for example, something
Speaker 1: called the My Book Essential, will even backup files the
Speaker 1: instant you create or modify them. This is great. An
Speaker 1: external hard drive will handle the case of a hard
Speaker 1: drive crash on your computer, but it does not handle
Speaker 1: the case of something like a lightning strike. A lightning
Speaker 1: strike will destroy everything plugged into the wall, including your
Speaker 1: computer and the backup drive. To eliminate this vulnerability, you
Speaker 1: want an external backup drive that you unplugged and keep
Speaker 1: in a safe place by a second external hard drive,
Speaker 1: and use it for this purpose. You can back up
Speaker 1: your files manually. Simply select your documents folder and drag
Speaker 1: it over to the external hard drive folder after you
Speaker 1: plug the drive into your machine. When your computer is
Speaker 1: done copying all the files, unplugged the drive and move
Speaker 1: it to a safe place in your house somewhere. Make
Speaker 1: sure it's not plugged into the wall. That works well,
Speaker 1: but what if your house burns down. Now you're gonna
Speaker 1: lose your computer and your backup and your extra backup.
Speaker 1: You may want to keep a third external hard drive
Speaker 1: at a trusted friends or relatives house or in a
Speaker 1: safe deposit box at the bank. This is called an
Speaker 1: offsite backup. You might swap it out only once a
Speaker 1: week or once a month, but it's better than nothing.
Speaker 1: Or there may be a company in your area that
Speaker 1: specializes in offsite backups. All these external hard drives maybe
Speaker 1: starting to sound like a pain in the neck. To
Speaker 1: be adequately protected with them, you need two or three
Speaker 1: and you have to rotate them periodically to maintain a
Speaker 1: current offsite backup. That's why Internet backup services have become
Speaker 1: so popular. You pay a monthly or an annual fee,
Speaker 1: and your backup is kept with a company on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Your computer backs itself up automatically through your Internet connection,
Speaker 1: and you never have to worry about lightning strikes or
Speaker 1: house fires. A number of companies sell these services, including Carbonite, Norton,
Speaker 1: I Drive, Mosey, and many others. If you look on
Speaker 1: the internet, it's easy to find articles that review all
Speaker 1: these services and give you pricing. There are some extra
Speaker 1: advantages offered by these online services that can make them
Speaker 1: even more appealing, like the fact that you can then
Speaker 1: access your files anywhere in the world once they're backed
Speaker 1: up to the Internet server. The only disadvantage of these
Speaker 1: Internet services is that most home Internet connections are fairly slow,
Speaker 1: especially on the up link side. There's no way, as
Speaker 1: far as I know, to use these services if you
Speaker 1: have more than twenty or thirty gigabytes of data, and
Speaker 1: if you have thirty gigabytes of data, it may take
Speaker 1: more than a month to back up all your files
Speaker 1: the first time if you're in the less than thirty
Speaker 1: gigabyte ballpark. However, internet backup services are a very easy
Speaker 1: and safe way to protect your data. Whatever you do
Speaker 1: do something, especially if you're working on a laptop that
Speaker 1: you cart around with you on a regular basis, the
Speaker 1: probability of dropping it or losing it is pretty high.
Speaker 1: Without a backup, you could lose it all. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Because it has
Speaker 1: staff works dot com, Jack threads is the online shopping
Speaker 1: destination for dudes. Everything on the side is up to off,
Speaker 1: all styles are curated, so buyer's remorse just doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: What's more is, if you were brain stuff, you can
Speaker 1: skip the membership wait list and get instant access at
Speaker 1: jack threads dot com slash stuff