Backup, Part 1

Where to Back Up?

There are various things we all know we really should do. Among them are lose some weight, exercise more, and backup our critical data files. Most of us are more likely to attain the body of a trained gymnast than we are to backup our critical files. But it is becoming easier to do so, and there is really no good reason not to take some measures to protect your most valuable files. In this little mini-series I will explore the options available to help the average computer user achieve greater security with their data. And I will show you some utilities that you may not have known were available to help you in this task.

The first decision you face in implementing a backup strategy is deciding where to back up your data to. You have a number of options, all with strengths and weaknesses. Let's look at them:

Floppy Disks - This is the least desirable option for two reasons. First, floppy disks do not hold very much. Second, they fail fairly often, and seem to do so just when you need them most. I tell people that they should never store anything important on a floppy disk. Floppy disks are for moving files, not storing files.
Zip Drive - This is an excellent choice as long as you are careful about picking which things to back up. You cannot do a complete backup of your entire hard drive this way, but I will argue later that for most of us we do not need to a complete backup of our hard drive anyway. Zip drives are just one of several brands of large-capacity drives which hold 100-200 MB of data on a single disk. So if you have one of the other brands that will work out just fine as well.
CD Recordable - A blank CD will hold 650MB of data, and the disks themselves are cheap, as low as $1 a piece in quantity. If your hard drive is not too large, you could use several of these to a do a complete backup as well. If you want to look at this option, experts suggest that you stick to SCSI drives only unless you like making coasters. The drive itself will probably cost around $250-300 for a decent one, plus a SCSI controller card if you don't already have one, which can cost $50-100 more.
Magnetic Tape - If you are going to do a complete backup of your entire hard drive, this is the usual way to go. There are people who need to do this. Usually, they are System Administrators backing up the hard drives of Network Servers. Most home users do not really need to do this. If you already have a tape drive, by all means use it for backups. But if you don't already have one, you might be better off buying a Zip drive or the equivalent.
Web site - Yes, there are now places online that will give you free storage space, often in amounts as large as 250 MB. This is great if you don't have any other option for storing your critical files. But news reports say half of all Dot.Coms will go out of business next year. What if one of them takes all of your backups with them when they go? I have never been able to convince myself that storing my backups online is really a good idea. There are companies that do this for a fee that are quite reliable, but they cost a lot and are aimed at corporate clients.
Network Drive - These days, more and more people have two or more computers in the home, and they are starting to network those computers. This is a great opportunity for a backup solution as well. If you have a server on your network, you can back up to the server. If your network is peer-to-peer, computers can backup to each other!
Second hard drive - If your computer has a second hard drive, backing up to that second drive can at least protect you against data loss due to hard drive failure. That is better than no backup at all.
Different directory - This does not give you much protection, but it does protect you against file corruption in the original files, including some types of virus infections. It is the most minimal protection, but better than nothing.

In looking at these options, you have to balance several factors. You want as much protection as you can reasonably get, but you don't want to spend a fortune. Some things can be implemented quite easily, like backing up to a different directory on your hard drive. You might wonder why anyone would bother, but it saved my 300 Netscape bookmarks for me once. Even small things can pay dividends. But you should look at some of the other options to get even more security. Many people already have two hard drives in their computer, so backing up to a second hard drive is quite easy. Or you may have a spare hard drive that is not currently installed, maybe the one you used to use before it got cramped and you bought a bigger one. Well, take that drive and install it as a slave for backup purposes.

If you already have a home network, or you are planning to implement one soon, just incorporate backup into your plans. You can make this as elaborate as you like. You could set up a server and include tape backup on the server, though frankly I have never bothered with that for my home setup. The point is that if you have a home network you can accomplish quite a bit without any additional cost by just using the network resources you have available. If you have two machines sharing a modem, it just takes a little work, and no expense, to have each machine backup the other.

If you have a single stand-alone computer, no plans to network, and no backup hardware in place, I would recommend purchasing something like a Zip drive. This can be used for more than just backups, since you can also exchange large files (and groups of files) using Zip disks, making this a versatile purchase. You should be able to find the drives for around $150, and disks for around $10 a piece, though if you shop around you might do better.