Arthur R. Press - Computer Support Consultant

WEST CHESTER, PA

(610) 431-3572

COMPUTER SUPPORT IN YOUR HOME OR OFFICE  

SYSTEM BACKUP

It is crucial that you have your data backed up in case of a hard disk failure, virus attack or file corruption.  If you have data files that are critical (electronic checkbooks, word processing documents, spreadsheets) and have not been backed up, you will lose these files forever.  It is true that you may backup all of your data files to floppy disks or ZIP disks but without a full backup system in effect, you will have to reload your operating system, reload all of your application software and then copy the data files back to their original locations.  This is a time consuming process that will be avoided with a full backup.

There are a number of options that you have at your disposal for backing up your system.

IMAGE BACKUP

The most feasible backup solution is to use a product such as Powequest Drive Image.  You will need to purchase an extra internal or, preferably an external hard drive to use this product.  The advantages to this method is that it is very quick (I can backup and veify 8GB in less than an hour, and restore my system in about 30 minutes).  This makes backing up on a nightly basis a breeze.

TAPE BACKUP

Tape backup has recently fallen out of favor because of newer technologies and is used primarily by businesses.

CD-RW

CD-RW drives allow you to write your backup to CD-RW or CD-R disks.  The process is basically the same as using a tape backup with one major exception.  A CD-RW disk can only hold a maximum of 650 megabytes.  If you need to backup 5 gigabytes of data it will take 8 CD-RW disks to accomplish the job.  You will have to sit through the backup inserting a new CD-RW disk every 650 megabytes.  When the backup is complete it goes on to the verification stage to make sure that all data was written out properly to the disks.  Essentially this means that you have to sit through the verification stage, which takes as long as the backup phase, again replacing the CD-RW disk every 650 megabytes.  It is an alternative to using  the above methods but, again this type of backup needs constant monitoring, whereas the imaging programs will put all of the data on 1 medium so that you can start the backup and come back later when the backup and verification are complete, a much easier method.

ZIP DISKS OR FLOPPY DISKS

In two words, forget it.  ZIP drives come in two varieties, 100 megabytes or 250 megabytes.  Using the same scenario of 5 gigabytes of data to backup it will now take 50 ZIP disks or 20 ZIP disks respectively.  Floppy disk which can hold 1.44 megabytes of data would take exactly 3473 floppy disks to complete the backup, not to mention 3473 more disk swaps for the verification phase.  This method is, however, a good medium for backing up individual files.

CONCLUSION

In the final analysis, it becomes obvious that the least intrusive and the safest method for backing up your system is to use a disk imaging scheme.  Since the external drives are portable, you can put them in a fireproof safe or keep them in another location so that you always know that no matter what happens to your system, you will always have a backup source that you can use to restore your files to a new system if necessary.