Wiz Kid's Spellbook
Your backup plan in fifteen minutes
Matt Davis
Owner, Wiz Kid Tech Repair
DataJul 20, 20264 min read
The best backup plan is the one that actually exists. Here is a setup you can finish in one sitting that covers the failures we see most.
Two copies, two places
Cloud sync — OneDrive, Google Drive, or iCloud — handles the documents and photos you touch regularly. It runs automatically, which is the whole point.
An external drive covers everything else: the archives, the old photo folders, the things too large or too private for the cloud. Plug it in monthly and copy your folders over.
The step people skip
Set one recurring calendar reminder. Open the backup, confirm a recent file is really there, and close it. A backup nobody has ever opened is not a backup.
- Check that the newest files made it, not just the oldest
- Keep the external drive unplugged between backups — ransomware cannot encrypt what is not connected
- Store it somewhere other than right next to the computer
“If you are not sure your backup is working, bring the drive in with the computer and we will verify it during your free diagnostic.”
— The bottom line
