Copyright (c) 2010 Bill Sklodowski

No arguements over the need to back up important business data on your PC, right? Good! Now let's find that all-important information... where it's stored on your PC. The good news is that Windows offers a set of built-in folders to manage data storage... and does it with a set of "default" folders. Basically, "default" means what the computer does automatically, without asking the user for help (that's you). We'll see in a moment that Windows has built-in folders for different types of files: documents, pictures, music and others, and Windows generally does a good job of sorting files to the correct folder.

Where does Windows keep all these folders? All these important folders - and several others - are stored under a main folder called the "User Account" folder. Every "user" (that's us humans) has their own account on a PC, when it's set up correctly, that is. When the PC is first "booted up," it displays all the different user accounts, and you can select which one to open and use. At this point, you click on your user name to go to your account. In this manner, you see only your documents, music, picutres and other data. Multiple user accounts allow several different people to have their own data stored - separately and securely - on a single computer.

Now let's zero in on the important folders you'll need to back up. Click on the Windows start button. You'll see the Windows menu is divided into two colums, left and right. At the top of the right-hand column is either your user name or that "generic" name. Look carefully... that name link is a button. Click on it to open the "user folder." This is where you'll see all the personal subfolders for Documents, Music, Pictures and more. On some PC's, the Documents folder may also be named "My Documents," but it's exactly the same.

Now the question is, how much "space" will you need to back up all your "stuff?Remember, I'm not talking about physical space, like in your garage or close. I'm talking about computer disk-space, almost always expressed in megabytes... that's the "space" used by files and folders. For a rough estimate (and that's good enough) of the space you'll need, go back to the main user folder, so you can see subfolders for Documents, etc. Point your mouse, but don't click, on the documents folder. Now, give the folder a single RIGHT mouse click (be sure it's right, not left). When the next menu pops up, you'll see a list of commands. At the bottom, you should see "Properties." Give that item a single left-mouse click. That opens another box... one that will count up the number of subfolders and individual files inside the top-level folder. It will also display the total amount of storage space all those items are using on the PC. The one number to focus on is "Size." That's the total number - in megabytes or gigabytes - needed to store all that data on the computer hard drive... and how big a storage device you'll need to back it up.

Of course the Documents (or My Documents) folder is the most important one to back up, but you may also want to include other folders with important data. So with that in mind, you can repeat the process of right-clicking on all those folders, to add up the total amount of space you'll need to back up everything. Of course now it's time to start thinking about hardware for the job... to back up all this important data. If the size is small - less than 16 gigabytes of total data, it could be easily and simply stores on a USB flash or "thumb" drive (two names for the same device.). If that number is bigger, you'll want to consider an external hard drive, which can store giant-sized amounts of data.