Backing up your computer hard drive is one of those tasks that everyone knows is necessary and beneficial, yet nobody seems to find the time to do. In fact, it seems that the only people who have instituted backups on a regular basis are people who have faced catastrophic data failures in the past. When a drive fails, there is often no way to recover the contents. If you are a student, you work from home or you run a business, the information stored inside your computer is your life. Losing it suddenly means losing days of productivity while you try to reconstruct the past.
Although there are various online solutions that offer automatic backups of critical data, I have always been concerned about the security of that information. Granted, the keepers of the online archives may have no interest in my information at all. But that information is important to me and I’m not inclined to share it with a stranger.
There is an excellent at-home solution for Mac users everywhere-the Apple Time Capsule. The Time Capsule provides easy, set-and-forget backup capabilities for the Mac computers on your home network. This network attached storage works seamlessly with the Time Machine software already on your Mac. All you have to do is start the software and it will look for and find the Time Capsule connected to your network. From that point on, backups occur regularly in the background, allowing you to keep working and rest secure in the knowledge your data can be recovered if needed.
In the tradition of Apple equipment, there is no complicated setup. The Time Capsule has integrated wireless technology, so the only connection you have to worry about is the power. Apple recently increased the capacity and lowered the price of the Time Capsule. It is now available in 1TB and 2TB models, providing ample storage for your information, even if you happen to work with images, video or music.
There are a couple of reasons why you might be interested in using a hard drive enclosure. First, you might have an internal disk from an old computer that contains files you want to recover. Alternatively, you might want to take an old, unused internal drive and turn it into an external drive. Finally, you may be able to build your own external drive more cheaply than purchasing one ready to use. Let’s take a closer look at each of the scenarios.
The first question you should ask yourself when choosing an external hard drive is “Do I need something portable?” Some people need a device that can be taken back and forth to the office or stuffed in a suitcase for a business trip. Others simply want a drive that will stay parked in one place for its entire life. The reason you should make this decision is size and portability vary among external hard drives. Models that are meant to be portable can probably handle more movement and shocks without failing. Drives that are designed for use in one place are bigger and heavier, and may not handle traveling very well.