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(Some previous months still online.) This month's PC Tips: 1 back·up 3 : the act or an instance of backing up a computer's hard disk 2 | ||
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If the Aladdin of personal computers were to appear, caress his magic lamp, and transform your old PC into a spiffy new one, would you murmur "Thank you, that's wonderful" or would you shriek "What have you done with my files?" If the former, you can skip this report -- for now. If the latter, read on -- this one's for you. Why. I know you've had a PC since the days of the original IBM and never had a problem. Me too. But hard drives can wear out much sooner than expected. Acts of God can occur: fires in fireproof buildings, floods, lightning, falling trees, etc. Vandalism, theft, and malicious damage are not impossible no matter who you are and where you live. And accidents do happen. The toddler spills Kool Aid into the cabinet, klutzy you falls over backward in your chair pulling the system down with you, or someone -- we won't say who -- hits [Delete] instead of [Insert] and then says "Yes" to the confirmation prompt. That's "Why"! What. I heard you say "everything" sotto voce. And that's a good answer if money doesn't matter. The practical answer is this: backup the files you created -- letters, spreadsheets, financial records, pictures, mail, etc. -- and that do not exist anywhere else. Except in rare cases, where a program is limited to one installation by its manufacturer, the software on your hard drive doesn't need to be backed up. It can be re-installed on a new or repaired hard drive from the original distribution disks, from CD-ROMs, or by downloading fresh copies. Although the value of what you've created may be inestimable, your important files will in many cases fit on a few (5-10) floppy disks. In comparison, the entire contents of an "average" Windows 95 hard drive would require well in excess of a thousand (1000) floppies, yet all of it is readily available from independent sources. Where. Over the years we've heard many suggestions about where to put your backup for safekeeping. While there is no one right answer, thoughtful people agree that you should keep one copy of your backup off-premises to protect against major catastrophes (fire, theft, vandalism, etc.) and a second copy near at hand to protect against hardware failure and mishaps. Your off-premise backup can be in the same media (disk, tape, removable hard drive) as the on-premise, or you can arrange with a company, like @Backup to archive your data via automatic Internet upload. (If you would like us, at Installations Plus+, to perform this service for you as we do for others, drop us a note.) For most users, "off-premise" means taking a copy home, or putting a copy in the car, or using a locker or safe-deposit box. When. When to backup your data -- in other words, how often -- depends on its importance and how much you create. For the average home office or small business office, once a week is a good bet. For a graphic designer with unique, hard-to-replicate work products, or for a physician with billing, scheduling and patient history computerized, once a day is the minimum. It has been wisely said: you can't be too rich, too smart, or backup too often. Who. Who should backup? No one. It's a trick question. Since no one likes to interrupt work to do something as tedious and unrewarding as backing up data, no one should do it. You should arrange for your computer system to perform backups automatically. This is very important. From personal experience with hundreds of clients, I can recall only two who religiously performed backups they had to remember to run themselves. Almost all modern backup software has some form of scheduler or manager built in. It takes a few minutes to decide on a schedule that works for you and then to set that into the software. Since you'll want at least two copies of your backup, if you don't use a remote service, you will have to train yourself or a trusted employee to swap the copies on a regular basis. That will be personal involvement enough! How. How you create backups, i.e. what media to use, depends again on how important your data is and how much of it you have. An individual user or low-volume home office will probably be able to store all of the needed files on less than a dozen floppy disks. Really? Yes. Text files take up very little space to begin with and backup software uses powerful compression algorithms to shrink the files even further. However, an individual creating large graphic or sound files, or a small office will want the convenience and capacity of a tape backup unit. Tape backup hardware capable of storing several gigabytes of data can be readily obtained for several hundred dollars. For the majority of users, a tape backup and two tapes (one kept on-premise, one off) is the right answer. A better answer, when funds permit, is to use removable drives, like the drives made by Iomega. These are more durable and so more reliable, but also more expensive, generally costing two to three times as much as tape backups. Removable drives more than balance their cost in some situations. Where tape drives are slow, making it a painstaking process when a file has to be retrieved, removable drives today are just about as fast as installed hard drives. Some users simply "clone" their hard drive to a removable drive, making it possible to be up and running again seconds after a recoverable failure. Within the next few years, these drives will replace floppy drives in new machines and become the de facto backup drive of choice. Besides the remote backup option mentioned above, there are others to consider as well, especially when downtime can't be tolerated. In our office, where virtually all of our work is done on a computer, important software and files are maintained in working condition on two PCs, and critical software and files exist on three PCs. The computers are networked so a file can be backed up to another PC right after creation. Additionally, we schedule an independent, automated system backup twice weekly to generate our off-premises copy. Backing up files to a server or networked archive drive should be considered whenever Windows for WorkGroups, Windows 95 or Window NT is in use. These operating systems have integrated networking software. The only additional things you'll need to set up a network are some cable, connectors, and relatively inexpensive network cards. This is networking -- and easy backup -- for under $100 per PC! Hopefully by now you're convinced that data backups are important and not too hard or too expensive. And perhaps you're thinking, "What about backup software?" We don't want to step on any toes out there, but whatever software came with your operating system or with your backup hardware will do the job quite handsomely. All that's required is copying files with compression on a schedule. Important, but not rocket science. Let us conclude with one simple caution. Don't fool around with partial or differential backups. It's not necessary to backup all of the files on your hard drive -- just the ones you created. But it is important to backup all of those files all the time. When hardware and storage media were major budget items it made sense to backup just those files that had changed since the last backup and then, in the event of a problem, someone, whose time was less costly than the equipment, could spend days reconstructing the full set of files. Those days and the days of downtown trolleys are long since past. Backup everything you create in full as often as you can.  Alert me by email when you post a new PC Tips column.1. PC Tips is an irregularly-issued column produced by Installations Plus+ for those of its clients who don't pretend to power user status.
2. Merriam Webster's WWWebster Dictionary. Also available online:
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