I know you’ve heard me say it over and over again. You KNOW you have to backup your computer. Hardware fails every single day, and if you don’t have a plan in place to backup your computer you are just asking to lose all of your pictures/videos/documents etc! I prefer backing up to an external hard drive. I currently use a Western Digital Passport. Online backups (to me) take too long, and I don’t like the idea that I have to be online to restore. What if my internet is down when I need to restore my files? What if something gets corrupted in the transfer? I just prefer to have my backups with me at all times. Here are some of my “best practices” for having a good backup at all times.
Do NOT leave your external hard drive plugged into your computer at all times, or plugged into power at all times. Typically an external hard drive has the same kinds of parts as your internal hard drive. It’s just in a nice plastic casing to protect it. Would you leave your PC turned on ALL the time, even when you are sleeping? There is a reason that PC’s have a sleep or hibernate setting. You want to rest your hard drive, and the rest of the pieces of your computer from time to time. You wouldn’t leave your car running at all times either, right? So it is with an external hard drive. If it is constantly plugged in, it is constantly spinning the disk inside. that takes power and causes wear and tear on the internal parts. An external hard drive running in this manner will fail sooner than later. Best practice is to plug in the hard drive during the backup. When the backup is complete then unplug and store it in a safe place.
Offsite backups. Companies do this, and you may not have to be super crazy about it, since it’s just your personal data, but a good idea is to have your backup stored in a place that can’t be damaged when your home gets damaged. Two good places for this is to either store your backup at a friends house, or in your car. If you are getting out of the house during a fire, you may not remember to grab your hard drive. So to save you the hassle, backup to two different hard drives. Store one near your computer for easy file retrievals (say you accidentally deleted that file you’ve been working on for months, luckily your backup is there to save you), and store the other one in the car or at your friend’s house.
Come back tomorrow for the rest of the best practices for backing up your computer!
Western Digital was kind enough to give me an external hard driveto use with my review. It’s ultra portable, and can hold up to a TB of data (that’s 1,000 GB). My backup transferred to the hard drive lickity split and it’s a sleek black and blends in nicely with my desktop. I hardly know it’s there! They also offered to give two of my readers a 500 GB Passport! To enter to win the external hard drive simply leave a comment on this post. As always, only one entry per person. Giveaway will end on Sunday November 21st. Again there will be 2 winners!
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I receive compensation if you make a purchase using the links.
thanks for this offer! i have way too much on my laptop and this would really help me out 🙂 thanks for the opportunity I hope I am one of the lucky winners!!
Would love to win this!
This would be helpful in so many ways…thanks for the opportunity to win it!!
I so need one of these! As a single mom, I sure can’t afford one right now, with it being so close to Christmas. Thanks for the info!
I would love to win this!
In desperate need of an external hard drive! We have been playing with fire by downloading all of our photos onto the computer and deleting them off the camera!!
I am recently unemployed and have disabilities. I could so use this because my computer is old but it is the only one I have . I do not have money to fix it or get a new one. I Use my computer every day. I would be very happy to receive a gift like this
Definitely could use this…my computer runs so slow due to all the family pics on there.
I am a stay at home mom and I am starting to do photography . an ex ternal hard drives would be a great help !
I would love to win something like this–I have tons of digital photos of my daughter that I would love to have backed up off my laptop. That, combined with my soon-to-be ex husband not paying me any child support or alimony, leaves me in no position to buy one!!! Hope I win this, that would be so awesome!
My husband works from home a lot and this would be SO great for him to have! (He’d LOVE it for Christmas!)
I would love one of these. I have years of pictures of my family and my mother and father who have passed on. I would go crazy if I ever lost my pictures. What a good idea epically since my desk top is kind of
old as far as computers go. thanks…
Dawn~
I would love to win an external hard drive for my family’s computer! 🙂
i would love to have this
I currently have a 250gb hard drive in my computer, with only 10gb free. Most of that is photos, and I have no backup currently.
To win this would be amazing. Thanks for the chance to win!
I would love to win an external hard drive. I have TONS of pics of my four kids an family. Thanks for the opportunity.
I sure could have used this the other week when my hard drive just went ka-put and I lost everything. That will teach me I guess. Fingers crossed I get chosen for this.
Great article. My computer has been having troubles turning on and I need to move all my photos to somewhere safe before I lose them. This external hard drive would do just the job!
Thanks for the info and offer. I have four kids and take waayyy to many pictures this would really help me out. thanks for doing this give away
Great read. I’ve been waiting to get an external HD. I think black friday may be the day to do it. Unless I win one =)
This would be an awesome give away. Thanks so much for letting people be able to win one, i have been looking into external harddrives to back up my computer
This would be great xmas gift for my mom. ***Fingers crossed***
Thanks!
Running a business from home, external hard drives are priceless! They have saved us more than once.
the extent of my backup space is a 4g flash drive! an external drive would be heavenly….. 🙂 thanks for the opportunity to win!
This is so awesome. I’ve been wabting to buy one. Now I can try to win it.
I know I definitely need to get something like this for my computer. I don’t have any back up right now.
Would so love to win this. I need to back up all of our pics and home movies.
Thank you so much for this opportunity! I would love to win! Love your blog!
I would love to win this for my hubby!
What a great idea for christmas, want to make sure all the family pictures stay safe!
It would be awesome to win this. I have so many pictures of my family and my parents who have passed on in folders on my computer. Fingers crossed thank you…
Dawn
I definitely could use one!
I would LOVE to win this!! My children share my computer. And even though they are supposed to log me on/off, I am always afraid of them deleting something of importance. This would be great if I won it! Thanks!
would love to win
I would love to win this! I currently have the 500gb version and it is filling up quickly….
I would love to win this! Thanks for the opportunity! 🙂
🙂
I’ve been wanting one of these for a long time! Thanks for hosting the giveaway!
Thanks for this awesome offer, this would really help, as I have way to many pics of my little boys on my computer, and if I lost them I would be heartbroken!! Thanks again!
i have a granddaughter that we take TONS of pictures of. i would LOVE to get them off my computer and onto an external hard drive so that i could free up space on my computer, but MOST importantly, they would be on something that i know i would not lose them. thanks for the give away. i hope i win!!
Love your site and would LOVE to win this. My computer failed me once, thought I lost all pictures of my kiddo’s. I didn’t, but I don’t want to ever feel that way again. I have been burning them onto disc’s. I think This would Really help me out.
Thanks for the chance.
would love to win this!
I would love one of these!
This would be really awesome to win! Good luck to everyone, and thanks for such a great giveaway! My hubby would love this for our lap top, we have roughly 5 years of pictures on there that I would DIE if I lost! 😉 Thank you!
I could really use this! Hope I win!
I would love to win one of these! I have been searching high and low for a good one!
I’ve needed this for so long! I almost lost all my pictures recently!
Really need something like this to back up my photos!
I need this SO Bad!
I have all of my childrens photos stored on our computer, and would be heartbroken to lose any of them. They are all great memories, as children grow and change so fast. This would be an amazing item to have.Thank you for the chance to be included in this giveaway.