Do your backups actually work? A 10-minute check

Plenty of people have a backup drive in a drawer or a cloud account they set up years ago. Far fewer have ever tried to get a file back. The time to find out a backup is not working is not the day the computer will not start.

I’m Brent from TechBrent. I help people around Midland and Tay with backups, and this ten-minute check is the simplest way to know yours will be there when you need it.

Step 1: find out what is being backed up

Open your backup tool and look at the date of the last successful backup. Depending on your devices, that might be:

• Time Machine on a Mac
• File History or OneDrive on Windows
• Google Photos or iCloud on a phone or tablet
• Software that came with an external drive

If the last backup is weeks or months old, that is your first problem. Drives get unplugged, cloud storage fills up, and settings change after updates. If you use a Mac and are not sure Time Machine is set up properly, my page on Mac help and Time Machine covers the kind of setup I do.

Step 2: restore one real file

This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is the one that matters most.

• Pick something that matters: a recent photo, a tax folder, a document you edited last week.
• Restore it to a different spot, such as the desktop, so you do not overwrite the original.
• Open it. If it opens and it is the version you expected, that backup is doing its job.

If you cannot find the file, or it will not open, it is far better to learn that now than after a hard drive fails.

Step 3: check what is missing

Many backups skip things people assume are covered:

• A second internal drive or a folder outside Documents
• Email stored only on the computer rather than online
• Photos on a phone that never synced
• Files on an old laptop that is still “in the closet”

Make a short list of what you could not live without and confirm each one is included.

Don’t forget phones and tablets

For many people, the phone now holds more photos than the computer ever did. Check that iCloud or Google Photos is actually turned on, that it has finished uploading, and that the storage plan is not full. A quick way to test: look for a recent photo from your phone on a computer or the web version of the service. If it is there, the phone backup is working. If it is not, that is worth fixing before the phone is lost, dropped or replaced.

Step 4: think about more than one copy

A single external drive sitting next to the computer is better than nothing, but a power surge, theft or a spilled coffee can take out both at once. A sensible setup for most homes is an automatic backup to a drive at home plus a copy in the cloud. That way, if one fails, the other is still there.

When a backup was not there

If a computer has already stopped working and the backup turns out to be missing or out of date, all is not necessarily lost. Depending on what happened, data recovery may be able to bring back photos and documents from the old drive. The sooner you stop using a failing drive, the better the chances.

Keep it boring

The best backup is one that runs on its own and that you check a couple of times a year. If you would like a hand with backup setup, or testing what you already have, that is part of the work I do, either in your home or remotely. You can read more about how I work on the TechBrent home page, or get in touch through the contact page and tell me what you are using now.

Frequently asked questions

How often should I test my backup?

A couple of times a year is plenty for most people, plus any time you get a new computer or change how you back up.

Is cloud storage enough on its own?

It is a good start, but having a second copy on a drive at home means you are covered if an account or sync setting has a problem.

Can files be recovered if I never had a backup?

Sometimes. It depends on what went wrong with the drive. Stop using the computer and get it looked at as soon as you can.