Searching for documents or emails is annoying when they hide between many old files. An estimated 80 per cent of the written texts, stored photos and stored pieces of music are rarely needed. This is especially true for older e-mails.
Throw or store?
Unrecoverably you must delete this but not. Instead, store such files. And if you need one of the old files or e-mails, just re-enter them.
USB stick or external hard drive?
First, however, you have to decide which files you want to archive and which you completely remove. For example, you can safely delete temporary files that are saved when browsing. Also old installation files of programs and apps will not mourn you. Documents that are older than five years can also go away.
Dropbox & Co.
Exception: professionally used files, correspondence with authorities and authorities as well as letters to insurance companies. They also belong in the category "archiving" as well as manuals in PDF format, current invoices, photos, music pieces and newer documents. For old e-mails, you can distinguish between private and professional use.
Synchronization with the cloud
Delete old status messages from Facebook, eBay, and other forums from within Outlook. This is particularly fast by sorting the inbox via the sender or the date of receipt. However, you should not delete professional correspondence. Everything that is older than one year can be archived and swapped.
The hard drive in the PC is not suitable as a basin for archives. After all, you want to clean up your storage space, and on the other hand your backups are lost when the PC is damaged or stolen. USB storage sticks are the first choice for fast archiving of large files or entire folders
You pay about 40 euros for a stick with 64 gigabytes of storage space - enough storage space to outsource documents and old photos. The advantage of the stick is that it fits into every pocket and can be connected to any computer.
To store your complete video collection, you better access an external hard drive. A model with 2 terabytes costs around 80 euros - enough space to accommodate media files and the complete system image. Your benefit: Data transfer is very fast, and if you have a secure place for the disk, you can always access a complete backup.
Mini-Workshop Outlook 2010: Archiving Emails
The cloud solutions SkyDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox offer you free storage space. Notwithstanding different functions, the principle behind this is always the same: you get free space on a virtual hard disk on the Internet. There you can upload, sync and download your documents.
The cloud solutions are ideal for sharing photos with other users or working together on documents. Or, if you want to have access to specific data from any internet-enabled PC in the world.
Dropbox provides you with 2 gigabytes of free storage, SkyDrive 7 gigabytes and Google Drive 15 gigabytes. A Microsoft Hotmail address and a Google Gmail address are included as a ticket. In addition, you can take advantage of these cloud solutions to access a number of slimmed office applications that you can use to edit documents.
However, the cloud is hardly suitable for transferring very large amounts of data. Just because of the upload times. On the other hand, it is an ideal location for documents you often need: address and phone lists, letter templates, CV and the (encrypted!) List of your passwords.
Large amounts of data as backup
After logging into Google, Microsoft, or Dropbox, you can immediately fill your disk space with new folders and files. In Google Drive, click Drive, then Create and Folder. Assign a name. To fill the newly created directory with files, just open an explorer window and drag the source files into the browser window while holding down the left mouse button. The copy process starts immediately.
Even faster and more comfortable is the way with the in-house synchronization program. Install the Google Drive Desktop app from the folder DVD or from your account (download link in the left navigation). Install the program and log in. Next, you will determine a synchronization folder 13 on the hard disk of your PC and start the data exchange.
Complete drive images
In the future, simply call up the local directory to add or delete files and folders. The synchronization happens automatically - and without detour via the browser. How to exchange data between your hard drive and your SkyDrive folder in a similarly convenient way, please read the "Data synchronization with SkyDrive" workshop on the next page.
If you want to outsource large amounts of old documents, pictures and e-mails, you should set up regular archiving. Backups are very suitable for this because they systematically back up your documents, save space when archiving, and quickly restore important or missing files. Windows 7 has everything on board.
The only downside: the previously archived data is not automatically deleted from the disk. You have to do this manually after the successful backup process. You can find the function in the maintenance center under "Backup"
E-mail backups
Passwordlists
Connect an external hard disk and start the "Windows Backup". The wizard asks you in the first step to select the target medium and also checks whether there is sufficient memory space. The next step is to select the files to back up. Click on "User selection". You can now specify up to the folder level which files should be archived.
Be sure to include all folders with personal files and documents. Check your selection, leave the "Include system image of drives" checkbox and click "Next". In the next step, click "Save settings and run Backup". The data backup starts immediately. To recover - select all folders or only individual files - click Restore My Files with the backup disk attached in the Maintenance Center. The wizard guides you quickly to your destination.
Mini-Workshop Dat e n-S y n c uterisation with S kyDrive
If you have a partition for the operating system and a separate partition for your data on your PC, you can create a complete image instead of a backup. Your advantage: Data transfer is very fast, and you do not have to deal with the selection of the files you want to back up.
This is especially easy with DriveImage XML, which you can load from the booklet DVD. Simply click on "Backup" in the left part of the start menu, then select the image source, for example drive "D" and the destination for the backup. The image is immediately written. To restore the backup as needed, click Restore on the Start menu, and then click Next.
In the "Select the drive image XML file you want to restore" line, enter the path to the backup file on your external hard drive and click "Next". Disadvantage of the procedure: A fast recovery of only few files is not possible in this way. You are better off with the Windows solution.
You can save the entire inventory of e-mails quickly in Outlook by archiving the corresponding PST file. Then you have a copy of all received and sent e-mails including appendices. In Outlook 2010, you first determine the location of the PST files by clicking on "File," then twice on "Account Settings."
Click the "Data Files" tab. Now you see the locations. Close Outlook, and then copy the sometimes very large files to an external hard drive. If, instead, you want to separate only certain older e-mails in Outlook, please proceed as described in the Mini-Workshop "Outlook 2010: Archiving Emails" on page 83. Archiving has the advantage that you can quickly retrieve certain old emails.
INFO Large plaster before backup
There should also be password lists on the official account for outsourcing. For logging into your PC, for e-mail services, Facebook, online communities and eBay, you also have more than a dozen different passwords.
The problem is to remember them. Save them but not just in an unprotected Excel list on the PC. It is better to take the small tool Password Safe from our magazine DVD instead. After the installation you decide for a "standard" database and assign a name for the new list. Save it remotely from the application on your PC or in a cloud folder. Then specify a strong master password, consisting of a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters.
In the left column of the main menu you will see different categories for your passwords. Select one. In the right pane, right-click in the blank field and select Add Record to anchor a password for a software or Web service. To retrieve the password later in the plaintext, click the arrow next to the bullets and select "Show / hide password."
Unimportant data: Delete old emails, junk folders, unimportant mailouts in the Sent Items folder, and empty the Recycle Bin; Disk Cleanup: Disk Cleanup deletes old error reports, temporary installation files, memory images, and more You can find them in the "Own files" quickly, if you sort by the date.
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