Sharing backup info ChemIT staff have come across which may help others backing up their personal computers.
See also
Backing up your valuable data is critical
- You make a mistake and delete or change a file.
- Your laptop is stolen.
- Your hard drive fails. It's not a question of "if", only a question of "when":
KEY TAKE-HOME: If particular data is important to you, you must have it in more than one place. No single location you own can be considered sufficient.
- Secured copies of your valuable data in different locations keeps your data safe!
- If you don't have a copy of your valuable data, DO SO NOW, even if manual.
- Do this anyway you can, just do it! USB thumb drive or removable drive, sync folders (Box.com, OneDrive, etc), emailing yourself key files, etc. Then set up on-going backups, per below.
Doing personal backups can usually be easy
- Establish an automatic method for backups.
- See below for Cornell-funded services good for doing this.
- If you have to think about copying files, such as manually copying files to a USB drive when you think of it, "it's not backup".
- Verify your backups, perhaps with calendar entry reminders to check.
- Often, with cloud-based sync services such as the Cornell-funded services below, this is easy.
Examples using Cornell-funded services
These are cloud-based, sync client-enabled services, similar to Dropbox.com.
NOTE: For students and many others, these services go away when you leave Cornell.
- OneDrive for Business (as of Dec 2015, not ideal for Mac users)
- Box (good for Macs or Windows)
Information for those who no longer have access to Cornell-funded services
Examples some folks have had experience with
- CrashPlan
- Do you have one you'd recommend? Notify Chemistry IT to add it to this list!
Other examples we'd like to hear others have had experience with
Other resources
Mac users can especially benefit from this one-page cheat-sheet, or get the entire book:
Guide from a vendor: