Back Up Your Files!

Hard drives crash sometimes and when they do, it sucks. And if you don’t have all of your files backed up, it really, really sucks. All of your hard work, your designs, your applications, emails … gone. You might be able to pay somebody to retrieve them for you, but that’ll cost money and time. If only you’d backed up your files …

INSURANCE

Backing up your files is crucial. Think of it as insurance. Really, really important insurance that you only pay for once, which is the cost of an extra hard drive. I tell you this from experience, and the experience taught me a valuable lesson: Back up your main hard drive regularly.

If you’re already backing up your files, then good for you. You’re doing the right thing. But if you don’t, then go buy an extra hard drive right now and start backing your stuff up.

The external/extra hard drive you use should be double your regular hard drive space. That way you won’t have any problems with the your backup software halting a backup session because of lack of space. You can also use it as a scratch disk, which comes in handy when working in Photoshop.

SCHEDULE IT

Most hard drives come with backup software, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has a program called “Time Machine” that you can use to backup your files.

I’ve scheduled the software to backup my work folder every night and my system and applications every month. That way if my main hard drive crashes, I can work off of the backup hard drive until my other hard drive is repaired.

Loading the OS X on your hard drive is a good idea too, as you can use it to boot up your system if anything goes wrong with your regular hard drive, or if you need to run any repair programs on your main hard drive.

IN THE END …

Having to buy an extra hard drive and set it all up may seem like an inconvenience, but if your main hard drive ever crashes, you will feel some relief knowing that all of your files were backed up.