 It’s
been a mantra forever. Something that you know you should do. It
runs the fine line between “it needs to be done today, but I’ll do
it tomorrow”, between bits being there and then being gone forever.
It’s backing up your
hard drive. In this Tech Tip we’ll be looking at some different
options for backing up your drive and see why it’s not only more
important than ever to back up but it’s also easier than ever as
well.
What’s Bits
Got To Do, Got To Do With It?
 It
happens every day: a hard drive fails, a virus wipes out data, a
simple mistake wipes out years of memories. Let’s face it, though
information can be broken down to bytes and then to bits – when it’s
gone – when it’s REALLY, REALLY gone, that empty feeling hits you
like a sledge hammer and you realize that it’s all gone – and that
you never did a backup. But, like many, you may be confused by the
array of backup options available, and may even be a bit confused
about what a backup is.
Backing up simply means archiving your data somewhere other than the
place that the data already is. So, something like a
system restore point, while very helpful for setting the system
back to a point before things may have “gotten out of control” is
great for getting a system back to normal – but it doesn’t back up
data. Undeleting data accidently erased (such as a picture or a
document file) can be done relatively simply by looking in your
recycle bin, or using free utilities such as
Recuva, this also is no substitution for having a copy of that
picture or document somewhere else (very helpful with a drive
failure). While there are many ways and strategies to back up your
data, three very basic solutions work well for many people.
Don’t Be
Singing Those Ol’ Backup Blues
 In
the olden days (like 15 to 20 years ago) backing up was commonly
done on tape, a duplicate hard drive or even floppy discs (yes, I
still have 45 or so floppy discs floating around in a long forgotten
corner of my garage containing my
8088 XT backup). These days with
DVD burners, super large
external hard drives and even economical
USB flash drives, backing up has never been easier. While there
are several excellent third party back up programs available - there
are simple backup utilities built directly into Windows and Mac
operating systems that will work fine for many. For example, if you
have Windows Vista, check out the
Backup and Restore Center where you can literally back up one
file or the entire hard drive. And on Max OS X 10.5,
Time Machine offers
 a
terrific way to back up important files quickly and easily. If you
have one of these operating systems, I highly recommend checking
these utilities out and seeing if they suit your needs. If you have
Window XP Professional, there is also a backup utility built in
(also available on Windows XP Home Edition, though not loaded by
default). Of course, if you’re the adventurous type, you can back up
files manually (quick and easy to do with devices such as a USB
flash drive where you literally copy the files you want over).
 If
you’re like most people, you probably are just fine if you have to
restore a system back to an original configuration using the
original restore partitions or install disks – but what you really
want to save is the important stuff. Stuff like music,
videos, games, documents and (very important for many people)
photos. With nearly everyone having
cheap digital cameras, you can easily lose years of photos if
you don’t have them backed up. For these crucial, personal files you
may want to consider some third party solutions. One solution that
is very popular is to purchase an external hard drive with an
integrated backup program. Many hard drive manufacturers (such as
Seagate and
Western Digital) offer external drives to help back up large
amounts of data. Some of these external drives even have such cool
features such as
one touch backup or continuous file saving.
 With
One Touch Backup (sometimes abbreviated OTB), you
literally touch a button on the external drive that you plugged into
your PC and your files are backed up - neat, simple and quick. With
continuous backup, you set it up and forget about it – it’s done for
you automatically. Another consideration would be an offsite storage
solution (very helpful in situations,
 such
as a house fire, where your backed up data could literally burn up
with the original PC). High speed internet and free and pay backup
services such as
Yahoo! Briefcase or
Symantec’s SwapDrive as well as other well-known online sites
such as
Mozy,
Carbonite,
iBackup, and
iDrive, make these great options to use alone or in conjunction
with the backup solutions mentioned above.
I’m Not
Crya-crya-ing Over Lost Data
 Again,
while there are other backup techniques we didn’t touch on in this
Tech Tip, using some or all of these backup suggestions (using the
programs already built into your operating system, using an external
hard drive and using a web based, off-site backup solution), you’ll
find that there really is no more excuse for putting off backing up
the important files on your computer, easily, simply and regularly.
You find that backing up really isn’t that hard to do.
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Disclaimer: Occasionally we miss something, make a
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