You are receiving this email from us as we want to keep our customers computers safe by keeping you informed of potential threats/risks to your computer, your online experience and keep you aware of new developments.

Welcome back and welcome to 2017. We hope everyone had a safe and joyous Christmas and New year.

This month we want to highlight the need for backups. (had a few machines this week with dead hard disks L )

And of course everyone just tuned out, because it’s all too hard.   You’re right, backups are hard, annoying and the most common question we get is, HOW?

There are literally thousands of ‘backup’ solutions available, all advertising how easy, simply and not time consuming at all they are.  It’s all lies.   There are also lots of experts proclaiming how OneDrive and Dropbox are fantastic and simple cloud based backup solutions.  Also not true, OneDrive and Dropbox are not backups, but they can be part of your backup solution.  There are genuine cloud based, backup solutions but let’s face it, we live in rural Australia and have neither the internet capability, capacity or service to use cloud based backups.   Here’s a quick example, 100 photos will take 40 hours to backup using a perfect ADSL service.  Personally, I have a bit more than a hundred photos to backup.

So, our options are, external hard disks or NAS (Network Attached Storage) and now that these have gotten so cheap, they are a really great option.  NAS units are just like external hard disks, except they are connected via your local network. (think personal cloud).  NAS units can be put somewhere out of the way, they are really cheap to run, in standby mode they use about the same amount of power as the router. You can use any sort of backup software, even just a simple script, to automatically backup to the NAS.  You don’t need to plug in the backup drive, connect power, etc, etc, etc. You just need to run the backup program, which can even be totally automated.  For protection against the encrypting malware (cryptolocker), they are a great option.  

In Summary, simple and effective backup options:

NAS – really cheap now, 3TB units are less than $300, network connected, always on and always available.

External hard disk (1,2,3TB drives), are really cheap, a little inconvenient, but excellent option for that once a week/month backup.   

Thumb drives are great for sharing files with the family and friends, taking documents to work, daily backups of important files, eg myob, quickbooks etc.   Not good for long term backups

CD/DVD, these are long, long term backups.  Robust, tough, good for archival, good for those important photos you can’t take again.

OneDrive and Dropbox are great for sharing files and backups of small amounts of data.

And for peace of mind, remember to check your backup worked and don’t forget to grab it as part of your emergency evacuation plan.

New Products in store now

Western Digital MyCloud 3TB Drive.

Dale Martin

Microblast Computers

87 High St, Maryborough

Ph: 0354604006