Be rigorous Backing Up iPhone Data in iTunes

I love my iPhone. Sure, there are some frustrations like with any electronic device, but by and large Apple has surely improved my efficiency.

That being said, I discovered recently that all I opinion was being backed up, isn't.

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I opinion that when I did a sync, all the data on the phone was getting saved on my computer, but that's not the case and that multiple copies were being stored.

Here's how iPhone backs up on your computer:

Via the Snyc highlight in iTunes, you of course set up your phone to sync with iTunes when you plug it in.

iTunes then will make a copy of of these major categories of data: your address book, apps, setting and preferences, calendar accounts/events, call history, camera roll, mobile me, map data, paired Bluetooth, sms/mms, voice memos, and trusted sites.

The question is, your backup is only on your computer -- not stored remotely, therefore if something happens to your computer, you no longer have a backup of your phone.

What to do?

The solution is to have an additional one backup copy that you make or make sure your entire computer is backed up with online backup storage, like Mozy, Carbonite, or SugarSync.

Another leading factor to reconsider is, there is only one copy of the data snapshot stored on your computer with iTunes. multiple copies are not kept. That means if you want to go back and see a copy older than the last one, you will have to go to Mac Time engine or your other backup solution - online backup or otherwise.

iPhone save points in iTunes are also not automatically encrypted. If you want it encrypted, you must adopt that choice and iTunes will encrypt the backup copy.

The question with encrypting on your own is, if you lose your encryption key, you are out of luck - no one can unlock your backup - ever.

Where exactly is your backup stored?

In Windows Xp, it is Documents and Settings, and in W7, it is under users. In Macs, it in the Library.

Most of my backups with iTunes only take about a minute. I have heard nightmare stories about some backups taking 20 minutes! gasp!

Even worse, with the I4, backups can take hours.

The main surmise iPhone backups can take a long time is pictures. Every time your phone is backed up, it creates a new copy of your photos. If you have a lot of pics you can well dream that taking some time.

If you have a big roll of film in your iPhone, one solution is to save your pics once to iPhoto and then delete them from the phone. That way, you won't be backing them up every time.

In conclusion, it just makes more sense to backup your whole computer remotely with a assistance like Mozy or Carbonite...as opposed to trusting iTunes to cope your leading data. That way, you have a duplicate copy.

Be rigorous Backing Up iPhone Data in iTunes

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