Back up Strategies (introduction)

The most neglected safeguard we almost always fail to do is backup our existing data and operating systems on our computers. How many times have we been caught when our computer crashes, the hard drive quits or something happens necessitating a reinstallation of everything on our computer.

A backup procedure is very often overlooked and neglected either through procrastination or just plain laziness. Under either condition we lose "big time" and have to reinstall everything but at the loss of files, letters, or programs we can never recover.

We should make at least one extra copy of all our business and financial records, our important personal documents, e-mail messages and photos/tunes.

More convenient yet is to make an entire mirror image of all our existing files and operating system. There are a number of ways to do this depending on our budget and our available time. Over the next few weeks I will deal with each of the following options, their pros ands cons, and their estimated cost.

1) separate partitions on your existing hard drive for the operating system, the data files, and the programs.
2) the use of CDs to back up data, operation and program files
3) the use of external devices such as external hard drives, and memory sticks
4) and finally the use of online services

The commonality among all these strategies is the initial backup, regardless of the option chosen will take a long period of time, but additional backups will be much quicker as you will only need to backup those important files that have changed. The backup data should be password protected and encrypted for maximum protection. Use the application's verification to ensure that the data has been backed up accurately.

1) Back up Strategies (partition the drive OK but still on the same machine)

We can create separate partitions on the existing hard drive for the 1) operating system, 2) the data files, and 3) the programs.

By default, (it happens automatically) Windows and most of your applications dump the files they create into your My Documents folder. The My Documents folder separates photos, music, video, and other types of files into sub directories of the My Document folder. The purpose is to keep them all in one spot for easy copying, but unfortunately it resides in the Windows boot partition, the most vulnerable and crowded place on your hard drive. It is the windows boot partition that is crucial to your computer booting up every time you start it. It is also the location where most crashes begin. Thus a computer crash not only shuts down your machine but it can also destroy your My Documents folder at the same time

Creating a new partition for your data (the stuff that would ordinarily reside in the My Documents folder) makes backup easier and safer because you avoid overwriting the files when you reinstall Windows. One approach: Use your C: (main) drive for your operating system; then create a new partition (when a new partition is created with one of the programs listed below a new drive letter is created to represent the partition, for example D:) for your applications, and another partition (your E: drive) for your business and/or financial data, and yet another partition (your F: drive) for image, sound, and video files.

Symantec's $70 Partition Magic 8 (see www.symantec.com then put "partition magic" in the search window) and Acronis's $50 Disk Director Suite (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/diskdirectorsuite/) make it simple to create new hard-drive partitions and resize existing ones. If you want to continue using the My Documents folder as your primary file repository, you can relocate the folder outside your Windows operating partition and locate it in on of the new, partitioned drives: Open Windows Explorer, right-click My Documents, select Properties, and choose the Move button under the Target tab; then navigate to and select the folder outside your Windows partition where you want to relocate My Documents, and click OK as often as necessary. To change the folder where Outlook Express stores your e-mail, open the program, click Tools, Options, Maintenance, Store Folder, Change, navigate to the folder you want to keep your e-mail in, and click OK until all the dialog boxes are closed.

2) Back up Strategies (CD or DVD backups are most likely as many home and business computers contain a CD or DVD burner)

The essential elements of backing up your computer's files may require use of multiple copies (i.e. different types of media such as disk partition and writable CDs or DVDs) because any media can go bad. One copy of your back up file media should be stored separately from your computer because you don't want to lose your backup material along with your PC. So use several sets of CDs, DVDs, or other media to store your backup and let the size of the job determine which media you choose. For example, if your files total 2GB and you want three separate copies, you won't fit each copy on a single CD, and they would take forever to upload to a Web server; instead, use a DVD or CD burner, an external hard drive (more about this next week), or both. But if you need to back up only 200MB of data and you can live with two copies, the CD/online route may be better.

For most people, DVD or CD is the backup medium of choice. Prices of recordable DVD and CD drives are coming down, but DVDs store several times more data than CDs do. Both writable DVD and CD discs are cheap and readily removable for safe off-site storage. Using DVDs or CDs may entail swapping discs a few times, so you'll have to hang around while backing up (at least initially). But the price of DVD backups is only about 10 to 20 cents per gigabyte and writable CDs are cheaper yet. For archiving unchanging data that you'll keep a long time, use DVD or CD write-once media (they're more reliable than read and write CDs).

There are a number of programs available to enable DVD or CD back ups. They vary in price from $20 - $70 US; such as: Acronis True Image 8.0 (http://www.acronis.com), Norton Ghost(http://www.norton.com), or Zip-backup (http://www.zip-backup.com/). You may already have a CD or DVD backup utility which comes with a read-writable CD or DVD drive. Prices can vary, depending where you buy the program, go to www.PCMag.com to read product reviews and explore their links to online stores which feature various software retailers and their respective prices.

3) Back up Strategies part (A separate hard drive or portable storage device)

If you're looking for faster backups that don't require you to remain nearby to swap discs, try an external hard drive such as Western Digital's Media Center, which costs about $230 for the 250GB model or Maxtor's OneTouch, priced at about $270 for the 300GB model.

Other external media such as memory sticks can be used as back up drives. Memory sticks, originally introduced to the market by Sony in 1998, were originally about the size of a stick of gum (thus the name memory stick) but are now much more compact in size while having a tremendous increase in storage capacity.

Typically, a memory stick is used as storage media for a portable device and in a form that can easily be removed for access by a PC. For example, digital cameras use memory Sticks for storing image files; With a memory stick reader (typically a small box that connects via USB or some other serial connection), a user could copy the pictures taken with the Sony digital camera off to his or her computer. memory Sticks are used in digital cameras, digital music players, PDAs, cellular phones, the Play Station Portable, and in other devices. Although memory sticks were primarily focused on images today's memory sticks can copy any file type. The original memory stick could only hold 128 KB but today's "sticks" can hold up to 4 GB of data. A significant third-party licensee that makes memory Sticks and jump drives (both serve similar purposes) is Lexar jump drives 1) for data storage (price ranges from $40 US to $180 US)

http://store.lexar.com/?category=23&subcategory=36 and 2) memory sticks for picture storage (priced from $30 to $120 US) http://www.lexar.com/digfilm/memory_stick.html.

A second source of memory sticks is scandisk at http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1013)-USB_Flash_Drives.as px. Prices vary from $20 US to $300 US depending on their intended use and capacity.

In summary both the above methods incorporate an external storage device to back up important files but are limited by their physical capacity. They can be subject to physical damage from fire, flood or other natural disasters. However; if stored separately from the machine, after backup, they can be used to restore files if your machine or lap top is stolen.

4) Back-up Strategies (on line easy but expensive)

Online services such as XDrive and Ibackup are expensive--prices start at $10 a month, though free trials are available--but interminably slow without a broad band Internet connection. Still, they're suitable for backing up a modest amount of critical data, and online is by far the safest place to store your files within easy reach.

Using an online backup service is convenient but expensive. Online backup services generally offer an easy to use, non browser interface, file compression utility (so you can store more data in less apace, and file encryption for privacy and security.

An online backup system is available any time when ever you have access to the Internet, although online services are better suited to high speed service rather than slower dial up accounts. Online backup has an additional benefit of being able to allow other people access to your files or public folders. You can password protect those files which you don't want to share with others.

There are a variety of online backups varying from $10 US to $15 US per month. If you buy an annual service you can save money. Ibackup (http://www.ibackup.com) and Xdrive (http://www.xdrive.com) Dataprotector (http://onlinebackup.connected.com) are $10/month, Data Deposit Box (http://www.datadepositbox.com) and Firstbackup (http://www.firstbackup.com) are $15/month. According to PCWorld.com Acpana Data Deposit Box is the cheapest for small backups but Xdrive is the easiest to use.