My Motherboard, Myself, And Backing Up Your Data
I haven’t had the chance to write in a while because my computer has been gone. I didn’t lose it, It didn’t go on strike, it was destroyed by water (like the great flood).
I spent a week in turmoil hoping that somehow Apple would save my hard drive since I was not sure that everything had been backed up. When I finally got a look at my remodeled computer at the genius bar, it was my worst fear realized—-everything had been erased. And I did not have a backup.
I was reminded of a Sex and the City Episode where something similar happens to Carrie’s mac. She is lamenting about having lost everything she ever wrote (I feel ya there).
Carrie: “Miranda I’m freaking out. What if everything I have ever written is gone?”
Miranda: “When was the last time you backed up?”
Carrie: “You know….no one talks about backing up. You’ve never used that expression with me before…ever! But, apparently….eeeeverybody is secretly running home at night and backing up their work!”
This is akin to how I felt. And now…. we are going to talk about ways to back up your computer so that you won’t have to made sad faces at the Apple genius bar.
1. Hard Drive
This method is pretty tried and true. You can always back up everything to an external hard drive. This is what I thought I had done. But it didn’t end up that way. But alas, this is still a valid method.
2. Time Machine
This comes with the mac OS X operating system. I am not sure how this works exactly, but it does allow you to back up files over time, so that you can refer back to the older copies of your files later.
3. Dropbox
Many people already use dropbox to store files, so this may be a natural tool to reach to. The only thing is….it will cost you money. $99 for 1TB of storage per year (or you can pay $9.99 per month). Not to bad for that amount of space though.
4. Third party apps
There are plenty of third party apps that you can download from the app store that will help you back up your mac. Some are get backup pro and integro backup express
5. Google Drive
It is possible to use Google Drive to back up your data. There is even a step by step article on how to do that here. It is also pretty cheap, about 2 dollars per month for 100GB of storage.
