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We have data stored on our smartphones or tablets that we use on a regular basis, private information that we probably do not want to lose in any way. Have we stopped to think what would happen if we lost all this content? Photographs, documents, videos, notes … Sometimes, due to the action of a virus, malicious users, failures in the operating system, or simply by accident or carelessness, the content of our equipment can be damaged or even disappear. Backups -in English, backups- allow us to recover all this original information and, in this way, avoid its definitive loss.
How can we lose data?
Backups are necessary because the risk of loss of data from our mobile or tablet exists: from the deterioration of our device, by use or accident, or our memory card, to the loss or theft of themselves. Nor can we disdain that the life cycle of these devices is getting faster and it is not rare to change devices with the need to transfer our data from one device to another. It will be the backups, in their different modalities, that will allow us to restore the information from our “old” mobile to our new mobile. Another situation that many smartphone or tablet users have experienced is the need to return the device to what we call “factory settings”, either due to a breakdown or due to a software problem in updates, or by badly designed applications, or even forgetting keys and passwords, this return to the initial values of the device erases our data, making backup copies essential. As we see, risk situations exist and will only be remedied if we have a backup copy.
But what data is on the mobile?
Today, most of us save our digital lives on our computers and other mobile devices. The information we store in these devices, ranges from the contacts that we may have in our agenda to text documents, through our calendar appointments, our email, the call log, SMS messages, data on system configuration, etc. . As you can see, the quantity and quality of the information that we can have on our mobile phone or our tablet, and above all its personal and work importance, is not negligible. Even applications and their data are susceptible to being lost, and in a field that we can think trivial as that of games, frustrations can be generated. Can you imagine having to start again from the first level of Candy Crush for example? Any application or tool may need to store its own data, not just games and recreational applications.
All the information stored in our mobile devices is stored in two types of memory: internal and external memory. Applications, call logs and SMS messages, for example, are stored in internal memory, which is comparable to the hard disk of traditional computers, while photos and multimedia files in general are stored in external memory ( SD card, which is removable). To save space in internal memory, it should be noted that many applications can be moved to the external memory card, but not all. In addition, if the user changes her mobile, on that same card, as it is external and is not affected, she will have all the content that she does not want to lose on her new terminal.
What do I keep in the backup?
When considering regular backups, we must think that the size available to keep these copies is limited. For example, right now if we have an Apple smartphone, the space in iCloud to store backup copies is 5 GB. Although in future articles we will talk about how to make backups on Android and IOS systems, it should be noted that it is highly recommended to give a different treatment to photographs, videos and multimedia files in general compared to other information that it is necessary to go on the mobile backup.
This type of multimedia files usually occupy a lot of space, space that grows inexorably with our activity. To save them there are more recommended ways than backup such as external hard drives or cloud storage services.
Contacts, appointments (calendar), email (associated gmail accounts), system configuration (data from our data server, services, etc.), call log, SMS and MMS messages, applications and their data, data files . All this will be what we should always include in our backups of mobile devices.
What is and what is not important?
When considering regular backups, we must think that the size available to keep these copies is limited.
In later articles we will explain how to make these backups, both for Android phones and tablets as well as iOS . We remember that carrying them out, despite the fact that it seems a bit tedious, will save us a lot of headaches if the case comes that we may lose all the information we have stored.
