Data Backup Solutions – Be it Windows or Mac or any computer system, backup of your valuable data is crucial to ensure your peace of mind that when disasters happen and they will (Murphy’s law) that you are prepared to recover from it.
Windows OS – has basic backup of data, but not any of the applications or OS, just your files and some preferences, this is good enough if you have the original installs for the applications that you use. There are commercial software that have much better options for scheduling and dealing with multiple backup drives, for a business, you can setup offsite backups on a rotating schedule to further mitigate potential disasters, things like loss of equipment, fire, flooding and theft. Also online backup solutions are available, with many different options available if a restore has to done. One note to remember, testing a restore of your backup and that’s it’s functioning properly is very important, the last thing we want to discover is a backup we setup has not been working for a long period of time and now we do not have an uptodate copy of our files. Periodic checking is important to make sure your important files are protected.
Macintosh OS – has a great built in backup solution called Time Machine, it can store incremental updates of an entire drive and restore it to any other drive or mac computer system, including any OS that is at the same version or higher and it includes all applications, data, images, preferences and OS to the exact tee as your drive was last backed up. Its also good for restoring accidentally deleted files, corrupt files, etc. Many other options are also available. Then, there are commercial software available to clone your boot drive, making an exact copy in time of your computer setup, which can then be used to restore again to any other drive or mac computer system, including any OS that is at the same version or higher and it includes all applications, data, images, preferences and OS to the exact tee as your drive was last backed up. Note: Many Applications due to copy protection methods will sometimes require re-activation of license agreements when restoring to replacement drives or other mac computers.
If you are not sure or need help understanding how best to make sure your have the right tools to ensure that when that disaster happens you have setup with the proper tools to not have any worries about your data.