Tech Tuesday Tip #4 - Backing Up

Back Up! Back Up! Back Up! No, I'm not referring to putting your car into reverse, I'm talking about saving your data incase when your hard drive fails. All hard drives fail, eventually. Unfortunately, sometimes they fail when you least expected it, your data isn't backed up, and you find yourself recreating files or hoping you have a paper version some place you can scan.

Here are some tips for making sure this does not happen to you.

Teachers & Macbook Users

Google Drive Sync Folder

Google provides every single one of our users 20GB of storage (it was only 5GB last year!) and anything you make in the web-based version of Google Drive (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, etc.) does not count towards that quota. Believe it or not, this is actually more storage than we were able to provide users on our own server for many years. The best part is that if you install and run the Google Drive application on your computer saving to Google Drive is as simple as saving to the Google Drive folder on your computer. The application automatically syncs anything you store there to the Google servers. Should your computer suddenly die all you will need to do is run the Google Drive program on your new computer and within a few minutes all of your files will be restored. If you are a desktop user the Google Drive folder will also allow you to easily access your files from home through the Google Drive website (drive.google.com) or by installing the application on your home computer. This video from last school year will show you how to use the Google Drive folder on your computer.

Photos, Videos, Music - External Hard Drive

But what about my iTunes and iPhoto libraries? Many of us sync our phones with our computers or download content from iTunes to use in class. More than likely these file are way too large to save to Google Drive. If you have a ton of photos, videos, or music then you really need to periodically back these up to an external hard drive. This video will show you how. It is really easy to do.

Business Office, Front Office, and Clerical Staff

Network Storage

If you are part of our Business Office, Front Office, or Clerical Staff teams then more than likely you are working with data which would not be appropriate for saving to individual Google Drive folders. Please make sure that you are always saving to the correct folder in the NCS server. This data is regularly backed up and should a computer or hard drive failure occur the IT Team can easily recover your files for later use.

If you have any questions or concerns about backing up your data or just need a helping hand please let the IT Department know.

Joe

Photo: Hard Drive by Walknboston on Flickr