August 31st, 2010
There are few things in life as important as our data. Nerdier words never before spoken, right? Listen up-then be the judge.
Whether you conduct business with the use of your computer or are just a casual “surfer”, you have likely grown more dependent on your computer in recent times. As such, your data is likely very important to you. Maybe it is your resume, the book you are writing, e-mails from friends or family, your favorites, your pictures, your contact list, calendar, financial information, or something else, but you would, almost undoubtedly, be at some measureable loss if some or all of those were to disappear from your life tomorrow. Imagine for a moment what it would be like to lose it; now, think about it. For some of you, this tragedy has already occurred and you can, instead, refer to your memory rather than your imagination.
Now that I have you presumably worried and paranoid, it is time to talk about the solution to this problem. How can you, again, feel safe and protected after I have alarmed you?
One word: Backup.
It sounds so simple. But how? The answer is going to vary depending on how important your data is to you. Earlier I asked you to imagine some or all of your important data were gone. The greater the stress you felt considering that hypothetical, the greater the measures you should take to prevent loss.
Have you heard the saying, “Less is more.”? In terms of backup, forget you ever heard it. Let that apply to the amount of salt you put on your next entrée. In terms of your data, more is more. More what? More places. The more places you keep your data, the less of permanently losing it.
Complexity can herein ensue, but for the sake of being generic and easily understood, let us say that having three or more locations is ideal. Your first location is the hard drive on your computer, where it is already. That one is the no brainer. It is where you go from there that can be the difference between a panic attack and resting easy, your mind worry-free and relaxed.
Location one-let us call it “ground zero”, your hard drive, is a moving part. It is the most mechanical and hardest working apparatus inside the box that is your computer. Most hard drives spin at 7,200 RPM, a figure that eclipses the red line in terms of the transmission of your automobile. This is an almost constant burden of the device which stores your info. Given the great labor placed on this unit, the likelihood of it giving out on you is increased. Note that there are new innovations, including solid state drives, eliminate the “moving parts” dilemma, though these are still very expensive in comparison to the standard units that likely came with your PC. Moreover, having one of these and nothing more still leaves you with your data in a single location, which as I outlined previously, is not a good practice.
The easiest solution is to create a location two. This can come in various forms, but use of a flash drive or an external hard drive is most popularly employed and not extremely costly or difficult to deploy. Burning to media such as CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc. is also on that plane.
I will not bore you with further detailing why now having your data in two locations is better than one. Most people get that with little question. Overlooked, however, is the idea behind locations three, four, and so on.
Having a third location, an off-site location, protects you from the things like a fire or an electrical surge. A third location can be as simple as having another flash drive or external hard drive and taking it elsewhere for safe keeping. This way, if your home or office burns down, and locations one and two are compromised, you will still have your data safe and sound elsewhere at location three. After all, if you had ten hard drives, flash drives, CDs, DVDs, etc. storing your backups, what good would they be if they all burned in the same fire or were shorted by the same electrical surge? To be idiomatic, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Another means of off-site backup is an online solution. We use a third party company, Carbonite, for our online backups, for example. There are pros and cons to that and other online backup solutions ranging from cost to security and all things in between, but I maintain: “More is more.” First evaluate the sensitivity of your data and weigh it against the reputation and procedures of any third party company you might wish to use for backups. Also, be sure to consider the timeliness and customer service you can hope to receive if and when you ever have to actually use such a service to restore your data. In this way, such an option is very much like insurance in that it is more important in how you are served after the incident than whatever they claim to cover beforehand.
By this time we have a firm understanding of all things location, location, location. With that hurdle eclipsed, the subsequent questions are: “What do I back up?” “Where can I find it?” “How do I do it?” Knowing the answer to these questions might seem basic, but not knowing or understanding one or all can prove tragic.
“What do I back up?” Simply put, you want to back up your data. Simple, yes, but the execution is so often fouled that I would feel remiss without explaining. . .
In order to get the proper files, you need to research their location, their path. Every program is different, though many have recurring similarities. You must find out where the pivotal file in association with whatever program you are using. Realize that millions of people use and install a financial program like Intuit’s Quicken or Microsoft’s Money to handle their financial data. Until you input your own information, the files that make up the programs are all the same. Important above all files required to run the program are your unique, personal, data files. These files harbor the data you spent all that time typing in. The program files will be restored when you reinstall the program, presuming a crash or like-resulting event has taken place where this has become necessary. Recapping, it is paramount that you know and understand where your unique files are for each program used.
Many programs have an import/export feature (usually under the “File” menu). Using this, you typically get to pick the store location and often even get to name or otherwise personalize the file so you may more easily recognize it. Naming the file so it can be easily identified, incorporating the date when possible, can prove useful.
Upon knowing the proper location of your files, you must execute, somehow, the copy process, the act itself, of backing up. You can copy and paste from one drive to the next. Alternatively, you can buy or download a program that does this for you; some are more complicated than others. I caution that these programs are seldom capable of doing a complete backup of your varying important files that are all made by different programs without a lengthy configuration. You can also burn to CD or DVD (or other) media. Depending on your fluency in computing, coupled with the amount of time you want to regularly set aside to perform this safeguard, you may wish to consult a professional who can advise you and tailor your specific needs to a set of procedures for going about your backups. Either way, this is where you should record and document a step-by-step guide for acting this out.
Understanding everything I talked about, if you still wish to go it alone, one program I like a lot for Windows users, as most of you are, is Microsoft’s SyncToy. It is free and easy to use. In short, you pick a left folder and a right folder to synchronize and click “Run” and let it do its thing. It will take everything on the left and put it on the right, and vice versa, until you have a like number of identical files on each side, a balanced equation. All you need to know is what we have already talked about, the whereabouts of your important data files and how to copy and paste them into a single location for the purposes of the sync. From there, if you have taken the time to identify two folders on differing drive letters, the program will take care of the rest for you when you unleash it. Lastly, you need only affirm that what is on your hard drive folder (usually on your “C” drive) is the same as what is on your backup device afterwards. Like a fire drill, practicing the procedure and making sure the restore works is beneficial.
There are also software solutions (programs) out there that will back up your entire system, including Symantec’s Ghost or True Image Workstation by Acronis, though these can be difficult to execute, costly, and time-consuming for a casual computer user. Similarly, there are hardware solutions such as RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) which provide various forms of duplication, multiplicity, and redundancy, but are, again, sometimes difficult to deploy, expensive, etc.
Thus far, we have covered how to locate your data files, how to copy or export them, and how many places to put them (Reminder: “More is more.”). Lastly, let’s talk frequency. How often? When? One last time I’ll have you refer back to the daydream I asked you have. Depending on how lost you would be if you came up missing your files, that scenario should aid you in deciding how often you need to perform backups. If you, for example, enter one hundred contacts into your address book per day, it would probably make sense to back them up more often.
In summary, be aware of where your files are and what they’re named. Copy these files to alternate locations, on-site and off. Choose what and how often to perform backups based on the fight of how long they took to make in the first place versus how long it may take you to do it over again. Carefully choose a span of time that is reasonable to make backups. Adhere to a schedule and put it on your calendar and make it habitual-and back up your calendar. When deciding a budget for what will become your backup routine, consider the value of both your time and data as it is ultimately your responsibility to stay current. Now you know the what, the where, the how, and the when. If it’s still Greek to you and you need further help or a consultation, let the “who” be us and e-mail or call or seek out help from another capable IT professional.
Shawn M. Lesky
LESKY Computer Everything
shawn@lesky.org
814-371-1797
Author: Shawn M. Lesky
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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