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Why should I backup my computer files?

Written by: Vinny Polston; IT manager of Mach1 PC, LLC.

Techs always say “backup backup backup!” So the question you are probably asking is, “Why should I backup my files?”. We are here to answer that! I’d like to begin answering this question with a lesson from a real-life scenario that we run into with customers who don’t backup their files:

Nancy came into our shop early in the morning right after opening; she had been up all night worrying and was very concerned! You see, Nancy has two kids that are now in their teens and the only copy of their baby pictures and childhood memories were on her computer. Last night her computer crashed and just started telling her that there was “no mountable boot volume” – whatever that means! We tell Nancy that typically means that either the hard drive, which is like your filing cabinet where all your files are stored, failed or that the computer is having trouble finding it. She isn’t all that concerned about the computer itself as it is replaceable – all of her precious moments and pictures are not replaceable. If Nancy had been backing up her files, she could rest easy knowing not all is lost. Nancy didn’t have a backup routine – and because of this lost everything.

When we work on computers here in the shop, we treat them like they are our own. Your files are very important! I know it sounds cheesy; but we do actually care and feel the agony when our customers lose important files because they didn’t have backup. We feel this way because we can relate to how it would feel if we lost our files – we would be lost! We have seen great brand new hard drives bad out of the packaging; yet we have also seen hard drives last 15 years.. The sad truth is that eventually, technology fails.

Don’t just backup your files, check your backups! We suggest having a backup routine either weekly or monthly depending on how important your files are to you. Please save yourself the heartache from losing your important documents and files – have a backup routine. Backing up your files is relatively easy now that there are online backup solutions as well as external hard drives & flash drives – blank DVDs are better than nothing.

Now that you know backing up is important, you might want to check out our article about “How do I backup my files“. Please check back regularly for more help!

Always make sure you run routine virus scans on your computer to ensure you are not backup an infection! For more information on that, you can check out: Top 5: What antivirus should I use?