How often should I backup my computer?

How often should I backup my computer?

Sarah, Kotara

Hi Sarah,

This is a how long is a piece of string question and really comes down to individual circumstances.

The biggest deciding factor in how often you should backup is how often you create data that needs to be backed up.

If you are a small business and you are updating your MYOB or creating quotes daily then you should be backing up daily at a minimum.

If it is your family computer and the only time you change data that needs to be backed up is after you come home from holidays and copy your images off your camera then you probably only need to backup then.

A Uni student may backup their major thesis that they are working on every couple of hours just to avoid any additional stress that comes from Murphy giving you a frozen computer and losing the last day’s worth of work.

You must remember though it doesn’t matter if you are backing up hourly, weekly or monthly you must test your backups. A simple test is restoring a couple of files and making sure there are no problems. The last thing you want to do is have to restore from backups and find out they haven’t run for 6 months and they are all corrupt.

Also ensure you rotate your backups. Backing up to a USB hard drive that stays attached to your computer isn’t helpful if your house burns down. Take a copy of your backups and leave them at a friend or family’s house. If you want to implement backups that backup automatically over the internet then contact us and we can provide advice on what works best in your situation.

With the latest trend of Crypto Locker ransom ware going around, it is now more important than ever to ensure you have a proper backup scheme in place.