Backing Up Your PC - How and Why?
What do I need to back my PC and data up?
Q. I’ve got everything OK now, and it’s fine. However…I’m worried about how safe my work is. Can I make sure it stays safe?
A. Of course. Everyone should have a working backup system. Imagine you were doing a vital assignment..you’d spent weeks on it..typing till all hours. One night, the power fails. When it comes back you go to open your precious work..and you get “File Corrupted”. I’ve seen it happen so often now it doesn’t affect me…but it will affect you. At best it’s inconvenient and annoying..at worst it can affect your job/college/work schedules.
The advice on this page applies to ALL computers, not just Networks. In Networks though, there is a lot more data, and a lot more chance of it getting accidentally altered, saved over, or damaged.
There are several methods of backing your data up. I will attempt to cover them below:
Floppy disk backup
The oldest backup method. Also the most long winded, boring, slow, and frustrating one. Not too bad for one or two documents..but if you do graphics or spreadsheets, or anything big..don’t bank on it fitting on a disk. 1.4 Megabytes was a lot in 1988..but now, it’s not enough…the floppy disk should really be ruled out for backup.
Have you ever installed a program from 10-15 floppy disks, got to disk 12 after 40 minutes and found that disk 12 is damaged?
Effectively you’ve just wasted 40 minutes for nothing. How many times have you seen or heard people trying to load data from floppy, only to find that the disk or data is unreadable?
Floppies aren’t the hardiest of beasts…I cringe every time a student comes and tells me “I can’t get my disk to work…”. 9 times out of 10 the disk has died between here and home, and they haven’t got a safe copy either..so they lose some work.
Tape drive backup
Another oldie. Good though, but relatively expensive. A tape drive could set you back £100-150 for a good one. Capacities range from the hundred of Megabytes, to hundreds of Gigabytes. One for all occasions really. The tapes are relatively expensive though..more so the bigger you go.
They usually come with their own software and installation instructions. Very popular in businesses, and designed to make sure your data is safely backed up.
Basically, you fit the drive into your PC as you would a CD drive. Restart your PC, install the software, set it up to your tastes, insert a tape and that’s it. Done. You can even set them up to back up when you’re not using the PC (say, at night).
Zip/Jaz/SparQ external drive backup
A sort of hybrid floppy disk drive/hard disk drive. You can get them as internal drives that you fit into the PC itself, or Parallel or even USB drives that you plug into the back of your PC. These are useful if you want or need to use them to transport files from 1 PC to another.
With either type, you install it/plug it in, restart your PC, install the software, and it’s done. You then insert a ZIP/Jaz/SparQ cartridge into the drive and it gets treated as a big floppy disk attached to your PC. Copy files over, run programs from it..just think of it as a hard disk you can carry around.
The drives aren’t THAT expensive…cheaper than a tape drive certainly. They vary in capacity from 100 Megabytes (100 floppies basically), to 250 Megabytes for the ZIP drives. Similar to these are the Jaz drives, but the Jaz can take more data (upto a gigabyte I think). The SparQ drive is very like a ZIP drive, and stores a Gigabyte of data per cartridge. A little hard to find these days though.
Cartridge costs are reasonably…a little pricey for me, but could be worse. You DO get the choice of USB or Parallel, Internal or portable drive though…so it’s worth it if you can get them cheaply.
USB Storage media backup
These solutions show technology at it’s best. You can now buy USB “Memory drives” that are the size of your car key, but can store as much as 512 floppy disks (note from Jem: now thousands?). Seriously.
You simply plug them into the back of any PC running Windows 98 or above, possibly installing 1 driver off a floppy disk under Windows 98 (none are needed for ME/2000/XP), and you instantly have a new disk drive that’s silent with no moving parts.
You can unplug them at any time without needing to restart and move to another PC, plug it in and open your work back up.
There are several different manufacturers out there, and all the “drives” are basically similar. The work is kept safe even if you unplug it from your PC. These drives use what is called “Non Volatile RAM”-it needs no power to keep data safe unlike PC memory.
They weigh less than some solid metal carkeys too. Imagine it…all your months work…with you all the time. No floppies, no bulky drives.
I have one I use for carrying all my diagnostic tools and work on when I go to fix PC’s. I literally plug in and go. Mine holds as much as 64 floppy disks, but is about 2.5 inches long! Hopefully the world will realise soon how useful these are, and floppies will finally be left behind.
Want to know more? Go to Google and type in “USB Pen Drives”, or “DisGo” and hit search. Costs a little…but it’s WELL worth it.
CD ReWriter Backup
This technology is becoming widespread. A CD writer as its name suggests is a CD drive that can MAKE CD’s, be they music or data. Widely available for the PC now, you plug them into your PC, install the drivers and software that come with them, and presto..one new CD burner.
You can then make your own CD’s at will….pretty much anything can be written to a CD writer. Copying Music CDs IS illegal though…so be warned. Copying data, work and so on is perfectly fine though.
The software is as simple to use as windows explorer of File Manager. Simply pick and drag what you want to the CD window, and click the “make CD button”.
CD burners are getting seriously cheap these days. I started out with a 2 speed recorder for over £100 a few years ago. 40 Minutes to burn a CD. Nothing wrong with that though..it’s perfectly reliable.
Then 2 weeks ago (January 3rdish 2004) I bought a new 48 speed CD burner…for £35! A CD in a minute and a half…and technology is now advanced enough to make failed CD writing a thing of the past.
The drives are getting faster and cheaper. The CD’s themselves are the cheapest media you can find if bought in packs of 25, 50 or 100. I’ve bought a 25 pack for £10…40p per disk. Each disk can store upto 650 floppy disks.
Now THAT’S economy for you. At that price, you could burn a backup every week for months at virtually no cost. Once data is burned to CD, it can’t be changed. If you want to change a file, you have to save it on PC and burn it onto CD again, keeping the earlier version too. This can be very useful for archives and important work.
If you take care of the CD’s (cases and so on), they can be as robust as any other type of storage. They have the advantage that if you need to read data somewhere, you just put them into any PC CDROM drive, and they’ll read fine. Simple eh?
My System
My PC is backed up to CD every week-it takes 10 minutes maximum. My work is copied also to my USB memory drive for carrying with me. The burned CD’s then go into a high temperature fire safe for safety.
My recommendations for speed (fastest first)
- USB Storage device
- ZIP/Jaz/Sparq Drive (internal or external)
- CD Rewriter
- Tape drive
- Floppy Disk
My recommendations for cost of drive(cheapest first)
- Floppy Disk
- CD Rewriter
- ZIP/Jaz drives
- USB Storage device
- Tape drives
My recommendation for cost of Tapes and media (cheapest first)
My Recommendation for ease of setup and installing (easiest to install/setup first)
- Floppy disk (always in the PC anyway!)
- USB storage devices
- ZIP/Jaz drives
- CD Rewriters
- Tape drives.