Tips on Backing Up Computer

Why Should You Backup Computer?

You will never think of losing computer data until it really happens. A sudden computer crash?infected with a virus, spyware or Trojan? Or silly deleting or overwriting an existing file when you should not have by mistake? All these may be possible onto every computer user.

If any of the above happens, you will lose everything. Although the operating system and programs can be reinstalled, but not your work(letters, pictures, sheets, etc.). So, there is no reason not to make a computer backup.

Computer Backup Definition

Shortly speaking, a computer backup refers to a copy of the information on your computer. Thus you can restore your computer from the copy anytime. The computer backup can be a full backup, an incremental back up, a differential backup or a selective back up. It is up to you. All these backup types request different amounts of time to perform and different types of data backup medium. We will explain them one by one in the following.

Computer Backup Types

Full Back Up

As its name implies, a full back up means to back up everything on the computer such as the operating system, settings, installed software and files.

Thus it will take a long time to complete a full backup (according to the amount of information on the computer), and surly the full back up will require the latest amount of back up medium.

Incremental Back Up

An incremental computer back up allows you to back up only the files that have been changed since the last back up. The time to complete an incremental back up and the amount it needs in the back up medium depend on how many files have been changed from the last back up.

Differential Back Up

Similar as the incremental back up, a differential back up is also to back up only the changed files, but it will keep all the changes since the last full back up on your computer. Meanwhile, the back up time and storage requirement in back up medium are also up to the amount of changes since the last full back up.

Selective Back Up

As its name says, a selective back up enables you to select to back up the specific files or folders on your computer. Also, the back up time and storage amount are still up to how much data you want to back up.