BackMyJunk -What to use?

	How to Back up all my Junk?? by The F@t Guy

Backing up - What to Use?

Backing up...What to use?

CDROM\DVD:

Like I said above, most machines these days have a writable CDROM. Many now have writable DVD. Both of these are great methods of backing up data to get it off the machine. Both are very stable storage media (if sealed and kept out of sunlight) - Once committed to CD or DVD the data will not degrade over time. So for deep-sixing your data, these two media are at the top of the food chain and I highly recommend that you own one or the other.

The main difference between CDR and DVD-R is capacity. As stated before, a CD will hold about 700mg in stored files. A DVD will hold nearly 3gig. That is a big difference- for general purposes it is fair to say that DVD will hold 3 times the data a CD will, so if you have large amounts of data a DVD is definitely the way to go.

CD, on the other hand, is a more proven and popular device. It has been around in one form or another for the last ten years. It is reasonable to say that every machine on the planet can read a CD, where its next generation (DVD) can only be read by boxes that have a DVD capable player within.

So if you are to use DVD to back up with, you must be sure that any one/where that may need access to the DVD has a DVD player. It would be a total bummer if you backed up your stuff with the DVD on your desktop, but couldn't read the DVDs with the CD-Rom on your laptop.

But CD/DVD is not real handy for daily critical backup- Both require a manually engaged program to build the backup, and it is extremely tiresome using this method on a daily basis.

ZIP-drives and the venerable floppy:

While floppy drives are not terribly useful due to small size, they still work great for backing up revisions of a document, or perhaps a few files. This still works great for many folks who really don't have much to save critically- My son still backs up his schoolwork to floppy. If it will fit on 1.44 megs... Have at it. But be aware: Floppies are notorious as an unstable media- they degrade over time, so it is a good idea to copy your floppies over to newer floppies from time to time (6mo. or so).

For critical data daily backup it is really hard to beat a zip-drive.

I ran the books for a small company for a while, and the data folder for that company had to be backed up on a daily basis. It wasn't alot of data, just checkbook, purchase orders, employeee time cards and the like. At first I backed it to a floppy, and then to two floppies, and later, I wrote a batch to zip it and back it to the two floppies... but it was becoming cumbersome. I needed a better solution.

For me, that solution was a 100mg zip-drive. the critical data could easily be kept on 100mg, and like a floppy, all you had to do was plug in the zipdisk and copy the stuff over. Zip disks come in 100mg, 250mg, 650, and so on, but the standard these days seems to be the 250. This is partly for legacy's sake- the 250 will read the old 100's too...

Unfortunately, like the floppy, zip media degrades over time. This is NOT a good medium for long-term storage. A couple of years from now, when you try to pull a needed file from a floppy or zip, it is quite likely the dang thing won't read and you will be in panic-city.

Both the floppy and the zip are super for dailies though- being as neat and easy as it comes. Just make certain that your long-term backup is in place too- and it doesn't hurt to use multiple zips\floppies: Bookkeepers often use zips that are labeled incrementally across the week (MONDAY, TUESDAY, etc). That way, even if they experience sudden death in a zip, they only lost "todays" and not the whole 9 yards.

This suggestion may seem foolhardy- but you must remember that your critical data is changing all the time- it is volatile anyway. All you mean to prevent when backing critical data is a condition where the hard drive fails and you lose it all- it is unlikely that your zips and your hdd will fail at the same time.

There is a better solution now, though: External hard drives and thumb drives.

External and Thumb Drives:

An External drive is a regular hard drive (or possibly a laptop drive) which is in it's own case and plugs in via the USB port (or Firewire, PCMCIA, Parallel if older). These drives are invaluable as a backup medium, as you are really not as limited in size- and they are readily moved from machine to machine (at least with NT boxes, 9x too, with software installed). They run and operate exactly like an internal drive, so you really need not learn a thing. They can be spendy, however- especially if you get a named brand.

A cheaper way to go is to buy the enclosure separate from the drive- The enclosure is around 35 dollars through your local hardware guy, and then buy a drive to put in it. This is especially useful if upgrading your system, as the old drive can be re-employed as an external, provided it is big enough to hold the proposed data.

If it is under 137 gigs, and formatted FAT32 it can even be accessed from Win98 or a DOS boot floppy for emergency purposes.

Thumb or keychain drives offer to bump it up yet another notch. While still a fairly young technology, it is quickly moving to the forefront for personal storage. A thumb drive is a very small appliance that plugs into a USB port on any machine (9x may need software).

They use flash (same as a camera) storage technology so they are literally able to fit on a key-chain! Sizes range from 512mb to several gig (as of this article) and climbing. For laptop/desktop syncronization, they are the TOP! For people who travel between computers, again, very hard to beat.

The only problem I see in thumb-drives is that people who use them tend not to use them as a backup, but keep their data on them as the primary datastore. While this is excellent for portability, one must once again figure out where you will be backing the data to. Like floppies and zips, thumb drives are reliable until they aren't. Most are good for several thousand writes, so they are probably more reliable than a zip or floppy, but they will die a cruel and immediate death when they go.

Across the Local Area Network:

Finally we get to the LAN. If you own multiple machines and have the capability to be networked, this is the simplest, easiest, fastest, and most automatic (possibly) method there is.

I might add here that it is possible to backup over the internet (if you have a VPN capable router), or even TO the internet if you own a website, but these methods are rather esoteric for the average joe. If you are a road warrior or sunbird and need to access home from the road, you might call me (or your tech) to inquire about these methods.

A Local Area Network (LAN) is a group of machines in the same place that are configured to talk to eachother. If you have multiple machines and a router or hub, you are already capable of backing up one machine to another. They may need to be configured to talk to eachother, however. This can be a bit complicated and could be a security risk if not configured properly, so I won't discuss how to set it up here. If you want the capability, call me (or the tech of your choice) to have it done.

The main problem with network backup is that it can be made so automatic that one tends to rely upon it entirely- This is a bad thing. Remember that you are not safely backed up until your data is off your machine, off the LAN and possibly even off-site (like a safe-deposit box perhaps).

That's about it, really... There are some other methods, but these are the most likely for normal purposes. Read on to find out about the actual backup process!