by Art Hendela
Copyright 2012 Hendela System Consultants, Inc.

Creating a back up for your laptop or PC is an essential task to protect your business. Failure to do so can result in lost files. A common misconception is that files are safe on an external hard drive, but if this hard drive stops working, is lost, stolen, or destroyed, your files are gone. Here are a few key steps to back up your data and keep your company safe.

First, keep an encrypted copy of your data somewhere away from your computer. I use the Carbonite storage system, which I have found easy to set up and use. Once set up, the backed up data is shown in Windows Explorer and is easily recovered. Program, operating system, and very large files are not backed up by default. To protect these system files, Carbonite offers an option at additional cost to construct a “mirror image” copy to an external hard drive. When restoring your computer, you can download your individual files from the internet storage. In the case of a crashed hard drive, use the external hard drive to rebuild your entire system to the time of your last mirror image copy.

In addition to emergency backup, a convenient feature of Carbonite is the ability to retrieve files from your internet backup through any web browser or the Carbonite mobile Smartphone app.

Carbonite recommends that your data is backed up to both the external hard drive and the internet storage continuously. From my experience, the continuous backup process overwhelms the PC’s resources and slows the system down tremendously. As a compromise between security and being able to work, I do not allow backups during peak business hours, but make them overnight or during periods when I am away from my desk. This secures the files and protects my business.

About the Author

Art Hendela is President and owner of Hendela System Consultants, Inc of Little Falls, NJ. Hendela System Consultants, Inc. helps its customers build profits from their websites through custom websites, surveys, search engine optimization processes and custom web applications built in ASP.NET and SQL Server. Art has been helping businesses large and small since 1988. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, a Masters of Science in Computer Science, and is a part-time PhD candidate (ABD) in Information Systems at New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is married to the former Vega Bjorndal and has two sons, Martin and Karl. His outside activities include coaching youth soccer, basketball, and baseball. You may reach Art at 973-890-0324.