|
|
|
||||||||
Why Should I Backup Computer Files?
I expect that you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't think that it was important to backup computer files. Suffice it to say it's not if you are going to need files that have been deleted , destroyed or inaccessible, but when.
Why Not Backup Everything Rather Than Just My Datafiles?
Two answers - time and space. With modern high capacity drives it can take an hour or more to do a complete backup. Backup media must also have a very large capacity. Because some of your files change every time you use your computer, to be safe you would have to do a complete backup every day. A very lengthy process. If you don't have a current backup, with a hard drive failure you will have to reinstall the operating system and all of your programs anyway.
What Is The Best Backup Media?
There is no best for everyone, but for my money writable CD's are becoming the best choice for a majority of home/small business users. Of course, most computers are not equipped with writable CD's but they are becoming more common.
Let's look at the pros and cons of some options.
Tape has one major advantage, large capacity. It is probably the cheapest way to store lots of bytes. However, tape is slow and not universally readable by other systems. It is also very slow to access specific files on a tape. My own experience with tape is rather poor. I own two different systems by major manufacturers and have had reliability problems both with the tape recorders and tapes themselves. You can live with replacing the tape backup device (especially if it is under warrantee), but when the tapes themselves are not as reliable the hard drive they are backing up, it's time to look at a different backup media.
Floppy Disks are cheap, reliable, and commonly used. Unfortunately as every knows capacity is very small. However if your backup needs are modest and they can be if you only backup essential files, this still can be a good choice.
Hard Drive Backup to a second hard drive is probably the fastest maybe even the cheapest for some. It isn't a good method for transferring files from one computer to another computer, and if it isn't a removable hard drive it won't help in case of a catastrophe such as a fire.
On The Web Your internet service provider (ISP) may offer free space that can be used for data storage (AOL allows 14 MB, a good bargain). You have to trust that your ISP will not lose the data. If you have a dial-up connection data transfer may be slow and inconvenient. There are also security questions, but this is probably a good option for many.
Proprietary Disks manufactured by Iomega, Sony, Digital Research etc. I don't have personal experience with any of these. They have improved capacity over floppy disks; however, none of them have the capacity of a CD, nor are they universally readable. If you use these disks for data backup you must be confident in the disk reliability.
CD-R/CD-RW If you have one these you can convince yourself. The media is cheap and almost every computer can read a CD-R (CD-RWs are something else). You can backup a mountain of data and keep a copy in a second location. They are also good for making backup copies of program installation disks that you can store in a second location such a safety deposit box.
I Have A CD-Writer, What Is A Good Way To Use It For Data Backup?
The following works with Backup Assistant, but I expect could be used with other data backup programs.
A good way to backup data to a CD-R is to use an intermediate destination on your hard drive. For example; C:\Temp, and then copy the file to your CD-R. Here is what I do which works very well. Name the backup set CD or CD-R using C:\Temp as the destination folder. After backup, I rename the file using the current full date with a zip extension as the file name. (Example: August 23, 2000.zip) Next, I copy the file to a CD-R. When you do this, eventually you will have a time-line of backup data on your CD-R. Do not delete the temporary file until it is replaced with a new file. You may find it handy to quickly retrieve a file.
You can also use a similar procedure for web backups.
You should also use automatic daily backups to a CD-RW. This media is not universally readable, but if you need the data you can eventually get to it.