It doesn’t matter how, but back-up your files

Whether you’re old enough to remember the Joni Mitchell song, or perhaps the “hair metal” version by Cinderella, many computer users can relate to this famous lyric: “you don’t know what you got, until it’s gone.”

That is, many of us don’t back-up our important files because we’re too busy, don’t know how, or just don’t care enough to do it. But then the inevitable happens.

Whether it’s a hard drive malfunction, nasty virus, theft, fire, flood, or damaging power surge, your documents, photos, and irreplaceable home movies are gone in a flash.

It doesn’t really matter how you back-up your files, as long as you do something and fairly often – perhaps once a month or so for casual users.

Here’s a look at a few different ways, and the advantages for each.

External hard drive

An external hard drive plugs into your computer’s USB port, and lets you drag and drop files over for safe-keeping.

It doesn’t matter if it’s laptop or a desktop -- or if it’s a Windows PC, Mac, or Chromebook -- these hard drives are great for many large files as they typically start at 1 terabyte (TB) of storage, which is more than a thousand gigabytes (GB). Digital packrats, this one’s for you.

“Desktop” hard drives are meant to be kept in one place, such as a home office, and require external power (that is, plugged into an AC outlet). A smaller “portable” hard drive gets its power from the computer itself, therefore it can be brought with you, but tends to cost a little more.

Best Buy currently has a 1TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim portable drive for $59.99 (and with free shipping if bought online). For the same price, there’s the WD My Passport Ultra 1TB External USB portable hard drive.

If you back-up files to a hard drive, it’s recommended to make a duplicate or triplicate on additional drives – just in case one drive fails in the future -- and keep them in different places, such as a safety deposit box, a trusted relative’s house, or a different room in your home than your PC (in the event of flood or fire, your back-up could be destroyed along with the original).

Without getting too techy, some hard drives can make duplicates to other drives simultaneously (a “RAID” setup), while some networked drives (and “Network Attached Storage,” or “NAS” solutions) let multiple devices access files inside and perhaps outside the home.

USB Flash drive, SD cards

Less expensive than a hard drive but smaller in capacity (storage), a USB Flash drive can also be used to back-up your important files. Because they’re tiny and lightweight, many keep one on their keychain, and they’re ideal for easily transferring files between computers.

Simply plug it into an available USB port on a computer and drag and drop files onto it. Many people use Window Explorer for Windows and Finder for a Mac.

Also referred to as “thumb-drive” or “jump drive” in some circles, these Flash drives can also be used on many TVs to play videos, photos, or music.

Flash drives range in price for about $10 for a 16GB drive to about $80 for a 256GB drive. But just like a hard drive, it’s not just the capacity you want to look at but also speed, as well, which refers to how fast you can write and read from these drives when connected to a computer.

Similarly, you can keep a SecureDigital (SD) or microSD card inserted in your laptop, which also uses Flash storage, to copy files over for safe keeping. You might have a spare one or two in a desk drawer or in a camera.

The ‘Cloud’

An increasingly popular option is to back-up your files to one of the free password-protected “cloud” (online)-based services, such as OneDrive, iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox and Box.

A cloud back-up means your files are stored offsite – therefore, protected from local threats.

With cloud services, you can access all of your backed-up stuff – such as documents or media -- from virtually any Internet-connected computer, tablet or smartphone in the world. Most cloud services have free apps that make it easy to download or upload files from your mobile device. As long as you can get online, you can access your stuff anywhere and on virtually any device.

Cloud computing can also reduce congestion in someone’s inbox. Rather than trying to email a number of large photos or videos to a family member or colleague, which can clog up their inbox, you can simply store them in the cloud and send a link to download the goods. This is incredibly convenient, and easy to do.

Cloud storage is free for a few gigabytes – between 2GB and 15GB, typically – but that might not be enough for those with a lot of files to back-up. It should be ample for documents, but not a lot for photos and videos. Cloud services offer a paid option, too, for additional storage.

Other options

There are other ways to back-up your files, too.

While not very popular any more, your laptop or desktop may have an optical drive that lets you record onto blank discs. Typically, you can store up to 700MB (megabytes) onto a recordable CD, 4.7GB or 8.5GB on a recordable DVD, and 25GB or 50GB on a recordable Blu-ray disc.

Spindles of discs vary in price greatly, based on number of discs, capacity, speed, and brand.

Another back-up option – and one many don’t think about -- is connecting an old phone or tablet to a computer’s USB port and using it to store a copy of your files. You might first want to format the device first, to free up as much storage as possible.

Now you can keep this back-up in a safe place -- just in case you need it in the future.

Sure, you might only get 16-, 32- or 64-gigabytes of memory with a spare phone or tablet – compared to a few terabytes with an external hard drive – but it might just be enough for some.

Plus, it’s still an ideal way to protect your important files without having to spend any additional cash.

Columnist Marc Saltzman writes on tech devices and trends for USA TODAY. Follow Marc on Twitter: @marc_saltzman. E-mail him at techcomments@usatoday.com.