Most people understand the importance of backing up valuable files. They realize that they should back up their most important financial documents, precious family photos, highly important emails, password files and other crucial data. Whether or not they actually follow through and actually back up this data is another matter. However, they at least recognize that it is important.
While there are some files that they clearly realize they need to back up, there is one very important thing that they usually neglect. Few people consider the importance of backing up their operating system. Those people that do back up their operating system usually don’t do it correctly. Their biggest mistake is backing it up in the cloud instead of their local hard drive.
Why should you back up your operating system?
Most people don’t envision all of the things that can go wrong when they are using a computer. There are a number of problems that could cause your operating system the crash. Some malware can cause massive problems for any machine. They can even delete the entire operating system or render specific files that you depend on completely unusable. You can also run into problems when updating your operating system. Errors with it could leave it unusable as well.
The consequences of your operating system can be more serious then you will can imagine. You might need to replace every single file in your computer if the master key of your operating system is compromised. Of course, having to replace your operating system itself will be an expensive and tedious task.
Why you should never back up your operating system the cloud
Far too many people think that the cloud is the perfect place to back up all of their important files. While there are valid reasons to store most files they are, your operating system should always be backed up on your local disk instead.
Here are some reasons that you should always use the best disk copy software on the market back up your operating system on your hard drive for another local media instead of the cloud.
Your license key may not work properly
When you are reinstalling your operating system, you are going to need to provide the license key. When you try installing it again, it is going to read the unique configuration of your computer to ensure that you are not trying to install the operating system on two different machines with the same key. This can get very messy if you have backed up your operating system on the cloud. The key may not work and you may be forced to purchase a new operating system with a different license.
You could expose very sensitive files
You need to be very careful about the types of files that you store on the cloud. Some cloud storage solutions are much more secure than others. However, none of them will be as secure as your own machine if the data is properly encrypted and protected with a strong fireball. You want to be very cautious about storing sensitive files pertaining to your unique operating system on the cloud. You may unwittingly create a back door for hackers or unwittingly reveal sensitive files that you didn’t intend to expose.
You may accidentally preserve corrupted OS files
You also need to be careful that you don’t accidentally preserve corrupted or maligned files from your operating system. This is a valid risk when you are backing them up on the cloud. If there are any problems with these files, you may not be able to fix them on a cloud server. They may also prevent you from downloading the OS files again at all.