You've heard this before. But you never have time. Or do you? I was recently visiting with a friend of mine that was in need of some technical assistance with her computer. We had some discussions about how to back-up computers that are hassle-free. This one thing may be the most overlooked item on anyone's list of PC maintenance chores.
Why Back up?
The Second Law of Thermodynamics implies that everything will eventually end in chaos. It's just a matter of time. I recently purchased an Anti-spyware program that resulted in not one, but two of my home computers being wrecked on the same day. I'll save the details that caused the problem for some future blog on software engineering practices, but for now I'll discuss the cure.
So what? You still have the original disks. How much time would it take you to reinstall all the programs, configure them for your system's hardware, and create all the files you had on the drive? Those digital photos of the cousin's new baby, a precious e-mail from a late relative, or scores of digital music files may be permanently lost!
The problem is we have gigabyte-sized hard drives in our computers that need frequent back-up, but any strategy to back them up on the local host PC drives is like betting you know the next thing that will go wrong - and it will be something other than that hardware link that joins them. You can never be sure enough to bet on that. I'll talk about remote back-up storage options.
Back-up Media and Equipment
PC Magazine has some very good advice here. In stability of media, a DVD R or DVD RW disc is the winner since you know it's not likely to malfunction. Burning them is fast and easy with a good drive, and recovery is just as easy since most software comes with some disaster recovery option that runs from the disk. Cost versus size is always the other option discussion. But hands down-from a dollar per gigabyte storage cost-it's hard to beat an external drive with a hi-speed USB or fire wire connection that uses a reliable software back-up program. Most can be either purchased as a package or easily assembled using a spare hard drive (recommeded at least 100 Gigabytes) and an external enclosure with back-up software purchased or downloaded as freeware/shareware. You can setup to run the backup on a schedule and unattended-meaning it's hassle free.
But the "air-gap" between your back-up media and the host PC should be intentionally maintained-otherwise the problem on you host PC could migrate to your back-up device/media undetected. The backup system would then be unavailable at the moment you need to recover. Back it up and after you do it, keep it up to date (recommend running a scheduled back-up at least every three months). You should always back-up before a system upgrade, and at some interval afterward you'll need to exercise that back-up again so the upgrade will be included in the back up set.
Types of Back-ups.
There are full system back-ups for catastrophic failure recovery. These hard drive images are great when restored-but it takes you back to the moment when you made the back-up. These may be copied to a hard-drive or even better to a DVD RW disc-since it's not altered very often, and very important to keep intact. Those System Restore Disks that you may had packaged with a new PC are full back-ups.
There are incremental back-ups for catch up of a full-back up to date. They copy files changed since your last backup-so the backup software needs to monitor your files-usually by looking for the absence in marking of the file's attribute as archived. Great because they reduce the back-up time and space you need to restore the files. External drive or a network option may be best here.
There are differential back-ups that are options for some advanced back-up software that get you caught up without having to go through a series of full and incremental back-ups. Like a one-step program with your full back up to get you running and up to date. Size would dictate whether it goes to a DVD RW or an external/network drive. It is very important to keep intact.
Lastly, the situational back-up is if you create a file that's important enough to save to a second location, you should have a secure place to put it. Flash USB drives and external network locations are excellent choices since they are always at hand. Also the Norton GoBack software works well to recover files that "just disappear" or reverse system changes that would otherwise be difficult to diagnose or repair. These options do not offer whole system recovery as a reliable option. For those who think I may have omitted it, I have yet to see the Windows XP System Restore recover my system.
My experience with software images made with Norton Ghost or Simple Backup have been successful in recovery of my crashed PCs in the past. I used the Dantz Retrospect Express software recently and it was quick and reliable. Also an excellent option is the Backup My PC software bundled with the Easy Media Creator that I just got for a gift-I'll let you know how it goes after my systems are recovered and their next back-up is completed.
You're only as safe as your last back-up. Don't put it off.
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2 comments:
I just recovered my media center crash where the hard drive just died. The Last backup was made a few weeks prior and was a life-saver. Used Norton Ghost to recover. Lack of a Media Center OS CD slowed the recovery, but external drive boxes and a second working PC made recovery possible. The drive was under warranty so that gets replaced as well.
Two weeks ago my new laptop crashed and could not reboot from hard disk or CD. The Warranty OEM service from HP was great, but all the files were lost when a factory image was used to restore the drive. Once again, my back-up from a Ghost Image saved the day.
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