STORAGE

These days, with so much digital information (pictures, music, budget and bank information) lying around on our computers, and the risk of those computers to somehow stop working, it becomes necessary to make back-ups of the information. There are many options that you have, both physical and virtual.

When most people think of physical back up, they think of CDs or DVDs. Well, HOW VERY EARLY 2000s OF YOU! These days, it is very inexpensive to purchase flash drives or external hard drives to keep back-ups of all your information.

First things first: having your information in two places does NOT mean it is backed up. Your information is only backed up if you have it stored in a place that is not USED every day. If I have my music on my music player AND my computer, it is not backed up. I am actively using both devices and neither are protected from accidental deletion. One of your storage devices must be disconnected and STORED for it to be considered ‘backed-up.’

The first choice you have is a flash drive. Flash drives are the size of a package of gum and contain no moveable parts on the inside of the device, meaning they can be dropped, or shaken with no damage to the information they contain. They are very convenient, as they can be plugged into your USB port, filled with files, unplugged and stored. They are very easy to carry around and work on any computer. They ARE small and, if storing for a long time, may get lost; so they must be kept track of. Also, they are usually small storage sizes (4 to 8 gigabyte, or GB) with the high end (and costly) being 32 GB. For more large scale storage, we are going to have to focus on external hard drives.

External hard drives are just like the hard drives that are in your computer, except they are able to be transported and carried easily outside the computer. They connect by USB or firewire (Apple’s version of faster USB) and usually require an external power supply. These devices are usually higher capacity (320-500 GB are normal) and can store as much as 2 tb (1tb is 1000 GB). The problems with these are that they are larger (about the size of a book) and have moveable parts inside of them that, if dropped or shaken, can stop working. I’ve had this happen to me, and there is nothing as soul-crushing as realizing that all your music is gone because they hard drive stopped working. But that was because I was continuously using the device and not using it for storage.

In addition to CDs and DVDs, these are the two main options for physical storage of your valuable documents and files. Next, we’ll talk about ways of storing your information virtually, online, so that you can access it from anywhere with an internet connection.