Backing up
I've had a computer since the early eighties and yesterday for the first time backed up my hard drive completely. For many years I kept data files backed up on CD's. I bought a 120GB external hard drive and installed it (really just plugged it in) and commenced the backup. This was about 5 p.m. yesterday and the backup finished this morning around 11 a.m. More than 180,000 files (26.3GB space on C:\) backed up. The external drive was in one of the slower USB ports on my computer. I switched this today to a USB 2.0 port, of which I have four (two in the back and two in the front). Had the initial plug-in been in the faster port I am sure the whole process would have finished much sooner. This afternoon I ran a test by deleting a file from C:\ and then restoring that same file from the external drive. Backing up in the future will be incremental as files are generated and thus the whole process will be on-going.
The price of external storage has dropped and this undoubtedly led me to this step. Coupled with the "no tools required" USB connection it seemed time to go beyond the saving of data files. I've read for years about the necessity and desirability of backing up and believe in it.
#172 (04-21)
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