Hard drive backup and recovery is something you should be concerned about, especially if you have any information on your computer or network that would be costly or even impossible to replace, such as personal photos or documents.
Many options are available and each have their pros and cons. Ultimately, you’ll need to decide what to use based on how much information you have to back up, how critical it is, how much you have in your budget (which can even be nothing), and what is the most likely reason that you will need to recover the information.
The first type of backup is a local or direct-attached backup. This is an actual second hard drive that is attached to your computer. This can include a thumb drive up to a hard drive the same size as the hard drive on a desktop computer.
These devices often come with software so that they automatically back up your data as long as they are attached to your computer. Many of these devices are portable and can be used to transfer large amounts of data to another computer.
This type of backup works very well if your biggest concern is your computer’s hard drive failing. However, if you keep the device attached to your computer, it won’t help you if some type of disaster, such as fire or flood, destroys your computer since it will most likely destroy the backup as well. If you use a portable device, it would be easier to grab and take with you if you were forced to evacuate in the face of an impending disaster.
These devices can be expensive, but they can store large amounts of data and do it very quickly. Of course, the larger the storage space and the faster they work, the more expensive they will be.
