Why backups are so important

So i know this may be sort of boring to start off but if you are a start-up company and want to sell or even have anything done online you will learn at some point to why backing up your files is so important….and you don’t need an IT grad to do it for you anymore.

I found a 1 TB(Terabyte = 1000 Gigabytes - that’s more space than you will ever need) external drive on ncix.com today for 149.99. http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=28600&promoid=1019.

1TB external hard drive

The great thing about an external hard drive is that if your not the most technical person in the world all you have to do is plug it into a USB port onto your computer and a power outlet and your ready to go. There are some external hard drives out there that can run just on the power of your computer via the USB cable but they are a bit more expensive. So you spend $150 on this great drive and you plug it in, and now you can easily copy your files from your computer onto this drive. I personally keep the drive in a different location than my computer(in case of theft).

So now you have your backups on a drive that shouldn’t be used for anything else besides backups. Don’t install an operating system on it, don’t put music on it, just keep it for business files only because in reality this drive will be for your peace of mind. You also can tell potential investors that you have a secure backup system that you have in place that you run once a week.

The more expensive and more technical way of doing backups is having your own server running and doing automated backups, and having 2-3 external hard drives that are never in the same place. That is only if you have the technical skills and money to back it up. For Memorywalk i just use  an external hard drive  and  also another  computer that has quite a bit of space to backup my  files. This includes all my clients files/invoices/designs/receipts/everything.  If you decide to be slack on doing backups, and sooooo many small start ups do not do this regularly, and if something does happen (say  your hard drive  dies - which happens way more often than you want to hear) and you all the sudden have a client that wants a copy of that file you worked on 2 months ago…..well your going to have one unsatisfied customer.

So the moral of my boring but yet extremely useful story is take the time to make backups even if you don’t have the time. It’s always my #1 rule of thumb and there are too many horror stories out there so make sure you get in the habit.

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