This article is in the September 2017 edition of the St Augustine News Journal & the St Augustine Beaches News Journal.
1 out of 10 folks I work with has a backup of any kind. That’s taking a big risk with important files. If a hard drive fails, and there are no backups, everything is lost.
Last month I had the unpleasant task of telling a client that their hard drive had failed. They had no backups. Recovering their files would be impossible without sending the drive off to a forensic data recovery service, which is very costly.
Another client’s hard drive failed, but they had a OneDrive account, and everything was recovered automatically when the new drive was installed and we signed into Windows with their Windows Live Credentials. It was drop dead simple, automatic, and enjoyable to watch happen. Over the span of about an hour, everything returned into place on their new hard drive.
All their files, music, pictures, videos and much more were automatically returned to their computer, as if nothing had happened. Since this was the primary computer for the home schooling of their children, you can imagine how important it was to have everything back.
You can get Office 365 and Premium OneDrive for 5 Computers (PC or Mac), 5 Tablets and 5 Phones for $99.99 per year. This includes 5 terabytes for OneDrive backup space, which is a huge amount of storage. If you have only one computer, there is a plan at $69.99 per year with 1 terabyte of storage.
So, how does one get this set up?
Go to onedrive.live.com and sign in or sign up. Once logged in, you can upgrade from the free basic account to the Premium OneDrive.
If you are running Windows 10 or 8.1, you probably already have the free OneDrive account set up. That gives you the basic OneDrive storage space, which can be upgraded to Premium. With Windows 7, you can download the OneDrive App and start using it. Even with a Mac, you can download the app as well, but I’d suggest iCloud instead.
Some folks prefer to not use online backup storage as they are worried about privacy. I understand and respect that choice. But then a local backup should be in place.