Dear Computer Lady,
I’ve learned so much from your site, its hard to thank you enough.
I want to back up/save my business accounts/files without using the internet. I am using the jump drive right now, but Im thinking that you gave warning about them only opening so many times and then useless??
I use Quickbooks for accounting and Windows 7 Home Premium for other documents.
Any suggestions for this type of back up?
Thanks, Rhonda
Dear Rhonda,
If your jump drive (or any USB data stick type of device) is the only thing you backup to, you could be at risk of losing your data just when you need it most. Here is what I would suggest.
You could buy a USB external hard drive and use that to backup. It is not quite as sensitive to external conditions as the jump drive. If you go with this type of backup, you still want to replace the external hard drive every couple of years just to be safe. When you purchase a second one, you could also alternate backing up to each drive so that you have two copies of your files backed up.
If you continue to use the jump drive, I would suggest that you purchase two drives and alternate them. If you backup to one drive this week, and the other drive next week, you should never be more than a week behind if one of them fails. I would also purchase a new set of jump drives each year since they are limited in the number of times you can read/write to them.
Elizabeth
It’s Your Turn: What do you think?
…. Share your experience in the comments box below.
Join The Family
become a patron today
www.patreon.com/computerlady
Elizabeth Boston is a Web designer, Social Media Consultant and managing editor of, “Ask The Computer Lady”.
Connect with Elizabeth on Google+