If you own a computer, backing up your data is the most important thing to do. Although so many computer users never do. One reason is that most users really don’t know how. But for Mac users it’s really quite simple.

With the introduction of the Leopard operating system (OS) in October 2007, Apple included an automatic backup utility called Time Machine. Any Mac user that isn’t currently using Time Machine is missing out on a great utility. It’s simple. First, know the size of your internal hard drive, lets say it’s a 250GB. Second, go and purchase an external drive. Apple suggests purchasing a drive that is twice the size of your internal drive, so for this situation a 500GB drive should be purchased. (If cost is prohibitive, a drive that is the same size as your internal will work.)

Now the easy part begins. Plug in the external drive, connect it to the Mac and turn it on. Go to your System Preferences and click on Time Machine. The setup is easy. Time Machine backs up your entire system once an hour. Time Machine is different from other backup applications in that it not only keeps a spare copy of every file, it remembers how your system looked on a given day — so you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past.

Never lose a file again. Check it out here.