File Backup - Find Out What, How, And When - An Expert Explains

If anything ever happens and you have to recover data, make it as painless as possible. It'll help if you not only have the means to back up your data (external hard drive, flash drive, online vaults), but also have a plan for knowing what to back up and when.

I admit that I'm somewhat anal about backing up my data. Everything on my computer represents my livelihood, and I don't want to lose 10 years worth of business if disaster strikes. Plus, I sleep better at night because I've taken the time to put my plan into action. Most people will wait until it's too late.

Try these suggestions from my plan to kick-start yours.

My Documents Folder:

My two main business folders are subcategorized into broad categories, then separated into smaller subcategories. Keeping like subjects together makes it easier to back up everything (and to find anything I need later). This is backed up on my external hard drive automatically every day, a 4GB thumb drive, and online every Sunday morning.

Outlook Files:

You can back up Outlook to include your contacts, emails, calendar, tasks. (See my post on backing up Outlook. The path to my Outlook files is at C:Documents and SettingsPeggy DuncanLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook). You'll want to back up the Outlook.pst file.) This is backed up on my external hard drive automatically every day, a 4GB thumb drive, and online every Sunday morning.

Templates:

If you create any templates (with the .dot, .xlt, .ppt extensions), they're automatically saved outside of the My Documents structure (mine are at C:Documents and SettingsPeggy DuncanApplication DataMicrosoftTemplates). I added this location to my Favorites so it would be easy to remember. To find out where your templates are stored, in Word, click the Tools menu, Options, File Locations tab. Double-click the location that reads User Templates. Templates are backed up on my external hard drive automatically every day, a, 4GB thumb drive, and online every Sunday morning if I've created new ones.

Downloaded Programs:

These are miscellaneous applications I've either purchased or downloaded for free. I don't have the CD. Instead of saving these in the Programs folder, I put them in a separate folder called My Downloaded Programs. If I have to restore my computer files, I won't have to remember which applications I downloaded. This is backed up on my external hard drive automatically every day, a 4GB thumb drive, and online every Sunday morning if I've added more.

Critical Data:

These are all the files that if you lost, it's over. For me, it's files for all the books I've written. I keep these outside of my main business file folder and off my computer because the files are so large. This is backed up on my external hard drive automatically every day, a 4GB thumb drive, and online every Sunday morning if I've updated anything.

QuickBook(and Banking Files):

Every time I open QuickBooks and update it, I back it up on my hard drive and 4GB thumb drive. I back it up online every Sunday morning, and backup to the external hard drive is automatic every day.

Favorites.

I've bookmarked some great sites and don't want to lose the easy access. I back these up on my 4GB thumb drive, and they're automatically backed up to my external hard drive every day. To find where your Favorites are stored, double-click My Computer, double-click the C: Drive, double-click Documents and Settings, double-click on your username folder. You should see your Favorites folder.

Pictures.

The pictures I use on my Website are safe on the Web server. All others are saved in the My Pictures folder which is automatically backed up on my external hard drive every day, and backed up online every Sunday if I've added more.

Special Projects.

I'm working on my family tree with the software Family Tree Maker. These files are automatically backed up to my external hard drive every day, and backed up online every Sunday morning if I've made any changes.

Simplify your life, and make data recovery one less thing you have to worry about. If you don't think you have time to deal with this now, how will you find time to recover later?

Still Backing Up Your Data To A Tape Drive?

When it was determined that computers needed a good place to store the information they created, the tape drive was invented. This is a very old piece of computer technology, and as a result, you can imagine that it is not usually used for any but the most necessary of applications.

First of all, tape drives operate in the same way as a video tape does – it consists of a magnetic tape that is spooled out, written to, and then re-spooled. If you remember trying to cue a VHS or BETA tape to the correct part of a movie, then you can probably guess one of the biggest problems with using tape to back up important data that you may need to access quickly.

If you need to get back to a particular piece of data, then you have to run the entire tape up until that point to get it back. This is due to the fact that information is saved sequentially onto tape media. One benefit of tape media is that if you make the tape long enough, you theoretically have an unlimited amount of storage space. Therefore, huge corporate computer networks that have terabytes or more of information sometimes still use tape drives but they're much faster than the old models some of your reading this may be accustomed to.

Tape drives also spool slowly in general, which is done to make sure that the tape is not damaged while it is being written to. If just one part of the tape is damaged, the entire backup is pointless and the tape often is simply disposed of.

As you can either imagine or guess, these types of data storage were not widely available for a very long period of time. While there were some old computers that used small tape drives to get programs or games into the computer, most personal computers did not have a lot of backup storage capacity until the floppy disk was invented and finally provided an alternative to the tape drive.

So what are the main problems with tape drives?

There are quite a few to be frank. Tape is a very fragile material and one of the main problems that tape drives have is the tape itself getting snagged, bent or even broken at any point on the tape itself. Once this happens you need to start the entire backup process again with a fresh tape or you'd have to splice the old tape together again (not recommended). The information stored on data tapes is in a magnetic format so exposing the type to any type of electro-magnet or x-ray device can wipe the entire tape clean.

For the home computer user there are lots of different backup options that are far superior to tape drives - not that any home user is still using a tape drive to backup information to surely? For example, you could get an external USB hard drive and put the data there. You can also save all of your information to CD-Rs or DVD-Rs instead and this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of data backup options for the modern computer user.