If we follow the conventional wisdom and marketing, a computer is greater than the sum of its parts.
The Most Valuable Company In The World wants us to understand that a computer and its accessories support the intersection of the arts and the humanities, in order to allow a connection to the world that allows us to grow, evolve, feel, and connect with humanity, and the things that bring us all together. And while its subtle, here’s a big glowing apple™ logo on your computer.
A certain friendly Windows purveying competitor would like us to remember that a computer is for doing the things you want to, while at the same time, a computer allows business to “get down to business.” And don’t forget, you’re using a Microsoft™ product!
All of this is good and fine, but lets boil it down a little bit further. Yes, playing video games is awesome. Building a movie of grandma’s 91st birthday is very sweet. And that army of spreadsheets for work? totally important. But w’re going further down.
A computer exists in order to send, receive, interact with, and store information. A computer, while on the surface, is for all of these grand ideals, at its most basic, is for that simple level of data interaction. And you can break it. It can be stolen, it can just fail. Likewise, we wont even mention that cup of coffee next to your laptop at this very moment, that the cat is going to knock over when they jump up on your desk in about 20 minutes.
So then, if the computer is for all of these things, and it is resting on the edge of the rain-slicked precipice of disaster, what is the first/next move in terms of protecting things. To this, I reply, its all about the data! Computers, phones, tablets, all of this stuff can be replaced. But if you have one copy of your doctoral thesis, and the cat finds the coffee cup, you may be out of luck. You must protect your non-physical property!
A backup is very simply, your information, in more than one place. Your device should be in a situation where several things are the case.
1. Your Significant Other could take a hammer to it.
2. All of your everything is backed up so that nothing would be lost due to the initial disaster.
3. putting everything back in place, like it was, without missing a beat, is easy (like make cereal easy).
4. The frequency of backup is to the point that you’re comfortable with the level of restore lag (how much would potentially be missing if you went back to that previous state)
5. It takes minimal to no interaction in order to have the backup, and the restore, if necessary, take place.
So, how do we accomplish all of this easily and functionally? In both the Mac and Windows world, the manufacturer’s of your operating system really want you to back up. They assume no responsibility/liability for your data. And when we consider that hard drives fail, and accidents happen, its imperative that you as the user do so.
In the world of the Mac, backing up a desktop or portable computer is relatively simple. You plug in an external hard drive. The built in backup software, Time Machine™, asks if you want to set everything up. And it gives you 3 choices. No, Yes, Decide later. You cannot do it wrong. Now, if your machine is portable, the same basic rules apply. You just have to remember to plug in your external. As long as these things happen, you have more than one copy of your data. Now, if you have something like Mac OS X Server set up, and your machines are all on a local network, you could attach a huge storage device to your server, and configure it with Time Machine™ to backup your networked clients. Then, when your users set up time machine, the server offers a networkable option. This means consolidated backup, fewer externals floating around, and easier management for your IT staff. Or, if you’re a HUGE nerd, it streamlines your at home backup solution, and you feel smarter than the average bear, for have a network backup solution at home!
If you’re using an iPhone, there is simply no reason to not have iCloud turned on, and configured correctly, with enough storage to back up all your devices. Yes. You read that correctly. You have one Apple ID. You have a phone, an iPad, and a Mac. You want to backup the iOS devices, and sync content from the Mac OS devices ( for the thousandth time, Mac OS devices DO NOT back up to iCloud!). You want to make sure you have more than the 5GB free iCloud version, in order to complete backups and syncs. Take the time. Spend the $1-$3 a month. You will be happy. Then, just remember to plug them in overnight, so backup can happen.
In the windows world, you can use Windows backup to create backups of your computer, and a complete system image of the unit in a specific state, depending on your needs and preferences. Its the same principle as Time machine, so that should be a no-brainer as well.
And, to take it even a step further, you can backup your Android phone via your google account. Its, yet again, almost the same process of going into settings, selecting backup, and entering in your credentials. Likewise, many non-apple phones have the ability to use mini-SD cards for backup, which isn’t bad, unless they get destroyed with the phone. Hence my like of non-local backup.
Now, lets talk about other solutions. Or rather, online backup. There are numerous solutions for backup a Mac or PC to an online backup service, via the internet. Many of them are robust, and offer pretty decent solutions. But there are constraints. How big is your hard drive? How much data do you need to push and pull? how fast is your internet connection? Do you have an internet connection? If so, how much bandwidth is provided? All of these are relevant questions. But that last one is the game. The average residential internet connection typically has a monthly cap on bandwidth. And by bandwidth, I mean how much you can upload and download. So if you have a 1 Terabyte hard drive, and you’ve got 450GB on that drive, backing it up the first time will exceed your bandwidth allotment for the month by 200GB. Some internet providers reserve the right to shut you down at that point. others can throttle the daylights out of your connection. In other cases, they begin billing you, per gigabyte. The cost and inconvenience can become astronomical. With a local or networked backup, none of these factors exist. You’re limited by the speed of your computer, and the speed of your hard drives.
Now, there’s one other class of folks we haven’t discussed. There are folks out there that deal with a minimal level of this. They’re a class of business user who’s company has done great things. These folks live in a world of MDM, or Mobile Device Management. For this user, when their computer or phone was issued to them by their company, the serial number and such were already enrolled with their MDM deployment. The first time they setup the device, it asks for their employee credentials. The rest of the setup is normal. However, the management protocol automatically installs apps they need, sets up the device in a way specified by the company, and configures everything for the user. Likewise, the majority of their data is stored online, so their computer and phone is somewhat of a mirror for the cloud services that are doing their jobs. In this users instance, should the device have a problem, or become damaged, its repaired or replaced, and the same setup process happens again. All the user has to remember, is their company credentials. Such things are glorious, but the chances are that you wont ever have this kind of thing at home. So while it bears mentioning, as that which is awesome, its not “Joe Customer” solution.
In terms of bringing it all around, lets bullet point a couple things.
▪ You have multiple devices.
▪ you need to back them all up.
▪ it needs to be easy, effective, and take minimal work.
▪ It needs to be complete.
▪ It needs to be inexpensive, comparatively
This is where I begin singing the praises of two things.
First, For desktop and portable computers, you need an external hard drive. You need to spend the money. You need to plug it in, and configure it. If your home computing solution is a desktop machine, leave that thing plugged in! Let it do its job. If your computer is portable, set up a regular calendar event/reminder in order to prompt you to not forget to backup.
Second, for your portable devices. Phones, tablets, etc. Set up that unit wit the appropriate cloud service of your choice (iCloud, Google, whatever). Make sure your cloud storage has enough space to cover the backup of all of your devices, with room to grow. Suck it up, spend the money. Yes, it will cost you, but which is more important? Saving $3 a month, or having all of your stuff? Make peace with the fact that there’s a cost to protect here, and complete the process.
In the long run, a computer, phone, tablet, etc, exist in order to process and interact with your data. If you are not taking the time and care to protect that data, then the whole point of the device, and all your had work is for naught. As so many of our moms would say, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Solve the problem before it becomes a problem, and when (not if) it does, the fixes and resolution are a lot easier to manage.