Work At Home Disaster Prevention
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by: Kate Rieger
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Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 Time: 3:35 AM
More people than ever before are turning their spare room, basement or garage into a work at home office. Plenty of attention is paid to creating the business and office space like adding a phone line, a printer, computer and setting up a website. Unfortunately, one of the most critical points to preventing a home office disaster is a lack of a viable backup srategy. Here are some tips to get you started.
Today's solutions for personal data backup systems are very affordable so expense really isn't a limitation. The backup method you choose very much depends on how quickly you need to restore data. You may want to carry an external hard drive with you. It's quick and highly accessable. On the other hand, there are online backup and restore methods that are also highly accessable, but require access to the Internet to backup and restore data.
Portable External Hard Drive
One backup strategy should be an external hard drive. It needs to be as big as or larger than your computer's hard drive. Then use the backup solution provided by Microsoft Vista or Windows 7, or alternatively the Apple solution. These native applications are adequate, but if you can invest in more robust backup software you'll have lot more flexibility. Set it up to backup changed data daily.
If possible, keep the external drive attached to your PC or laptop. If it's disconnected when your backup software kicks off the backups will fail. If you must disconnect the drive, you'll need to establish a habit to connect it before the backup starts. If you start skipping daily backups, you'll make it that much harder to recover from data corruption or deletion. You don't want to have to explain to clients that you lost their project data. That's no way to nuture a business relationship.
Online Backup Systems
There are a huge range of online backup services available to choose from, starting at about $10 per month. For extra security in your backup strategy, you may even want to sign up to more than one service. All services work differently, but most allow you to download a program to your PC or Mac that'll automatically check for new or modified files within the folders you specify. Once they're up and running, these backup tools really are "set and forget"!
Make sure to test any online backup service regularly. Even if you have no need to yet, you need to make sure it's easy to recover your files to your computer. This will check both the recovery process of the service you're signed up to, as well as the fact that the backup has actually worked!
There are a few drawbacks of online backup services, most notably the fact that they can slow down your browsing experience. Backup programs run in the background so they will use some of your bandwidth and connection to the Internet. Depending on how much data there is to back up, a complete first backup will require several days. Consider using the external drive backup system to provide local backups until the online service has the first full backup completed.
You may want to combine both options to cover a situation where you laptop and external drive is stolen or destroyed. Once you have a new PC, then you can use the online Internet system to recover data to a new PC. The restoration process is as fast as your connection to the Internet. f you are comfortable with the limitations of access using an Internet only based backup strategy, then you can opt to do without the external hard drive backup system option.
About the Author
While a solid backup system protects your data, your website is often your first connection with new clients. Download this FREE resource "The Great About Us Page Formula" at http://aboutuspageformula.com/ . Create an "About Us" page as a mini-resume and introduction to your expertise and portfolio. Template and examples show the way.
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