Technology Byte
Christine Cunningham

Backing Up Files

 

There are many ways you can unintentionally lose information on a computer – a child playing the keyboard like a piano, a power surge, a hard drive crash, corrupted data, and sometimes equipment just fails.

 

If you regularly make backup copies of your files and keep them in a separate place, you can get some, if not all, of your information back in the event something happens to the original files on your computer. Students should be backing up all their school work.  These files should not only be backed up upon completion of a project but also throughout the process if the paper or project is lengthy. 

 

The Sagemont School gives all the students access to a network drive (H drive) to back up their school work. This drive is only accessible from school, but students can pull up any work saved on this drive from any computer in the school. In addition to the network drive, all students are required to have a USB drive. A USB drive is highly portable and very reasonable in price.  The advantage to backing up files on the USB drive is that the students will still have access to the files outside of school.  The disadvantage is that students can lose the device.  The third most popular choice of backup is an external hard drive.  External hard drives are larger in size both physically and in capacity.  Students can back up larger files such as iTunes and photos in addition to their school work. There are other ways to backup data such as using CDs and DVDs, but for portability and ease of use, the school recommends the USB drives. 

 

The Sagemont School does not have the tools to recover data from damaged hard drives or corrupt data.  We encourage all students to make it a habit to back up your files.