Backing Up Data from Laptops
Students who purchase a laptop from the UNCG Student Laptop Initiative are responsible for backing up their own data. Information Technology Services recommends that laptop owners back up their data on a regular schedule. When deciding on a schedule, students should consider the impact of losing the data that is stored on the laptop. It is a good idea to make backups of important files each time the file is modified. For especially critical files, it is best to keep two copies of the file in separate locations.
Data Storage Options
- Copy files to a CD or DVD:
- The Lenovo ThinkPads (R60, T61, T60, T61p) and both MacBooks and MacBook Pro offered by the SLI include a DVD-RW drive which is able to write data to a DVD.
- The standard option on the R60 ThinkPad is a CD-RW/DVD drive. This type of drive is capable of reading data from DVDs but cannot write data onto them. Students who purchase a laptop with a CD-RW/DVD drive should plan to use CDs rather than DVDs for data backups.
- Copy files to a USB flash drive or other removable storage device:
USB flash drives are small devices that can be plugged into a computer and used for data storage. Files can be continually added to them and deleted at will.
External hard drives can store as much as your computer hard drive can hold and are intended for at-home backup.
Note: Music can take up many GBs.
- Copy files to your personal
network storage space (Novell NetWare):
Please keep in mind that the amount of NetStorage space allocated to each UNCG student is 120 MB.