All hard drives eventually fail!
Please read this article for details of this basic principal.
Therefore, it is vital to back up your laptop - or any computer where you are working directly on the machine itself, rather than in an account on the server.
Backup can be complex or simple depending on the method, the equipment and what you want to back up. Here are a variety of methods to back up various pieces of data. Please choose what suits your needs and equipment.
- Backing up your documents to a flash drive (FREE! with school flash drive. 1 gigabyte (GB) … limited space, but enough for documents.)
- Another handout on backing up to a flash drive.
- Backing up to an external hard drive (method #1). Simple and complete, but requires a 250 or 500 GB or 1 TB (terabyte) external hard drive ($75-$200).
- Backing up to an external hard drive using Time Machine (click on the link for a tutorial). BEST method, but required Leopard operating system (Macbooks or desktops only in our district) plus external hard drive ($75-$200 roughly for a drive of from 250 GB to 1 TB).
- Backing up your iTunes music (my handout).
- Backing up your iTunes music (a MacWorld handout).
- Backing up iTunes purchases (iLife 06): an Apple tutorial.
- Backing up your iPhoto photos to CDs or DVDs: an Apple tutorial (iLife 06).
- Backing up your Firefox bookmarks.
- Backing up your Safari bookmarks.
- Backing up your iCal data.
- Backing up your Address Book contacts.
