Which Backup Media Should You Use?

Using external hard drives for data backups

For small businesses, buying and using an external hard drive for data backups is the method I recommend. External hard drives are cheap compared to tape drive systems ; you can get one for several hundred dollars. They’re also easy to use; in many cases, all you have to do is plug the hard drive into your computer’s USB port. And while hard drives do fail, their failure rate is much lower than that of backup media such as CDs.

Using CD-Roms as data backups
Using CD-Roms as data backups is popular. Blank CDs are inexpensive, and copying data onto CDs is easy. However, this is the most unreliable method of all the data backup methods listed here. Who hasn’t had the experience of putting a CD into a drive only to find that the data is unreadable and the disk “doesn’t work”? CDs, like the floppy disks they’ve replaced, have a limited shelf life. I don’t recommend this method of data backup for any small business. If you are writing your data backup files onto CDs, make sure that you make (and keep) multiple copies over time.

Using tapes as data backups
Tape backups are ten thousand times as reliable as CD-Roms, but tape drives and their associated media are much more expensive than CD-Rom writers and CDs. A good tape drive can still cost over $1000, and individual tapes for the drive can cost up to $40 each. If you can afford the equipment, however, tape backup is far and away the best backup method.

Using Online backup services as data backups
There are many companies offering online backup services, but I can’t recommend this method. Besides the potential of bandwidth problems, there are just too many security issues that have yet to be dealt with. Firstly, the method is only as reliable as the company offering the online backup service, and Internet service companies have been coming and going faster than the common cold lately. Secondly, if your business data is sensitive, (and whose isn’t?), why would you want to put it on the ‘Net?

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What Should You Do Before a Computer Crash

data backupDo you has the experience a computer crash or data loss? We know that once it happens there is very little we can do about it. Just can pay a data recovery company hundres or thousands of dollars to recover the data or lose the data forever.

What should you do before a computer crash?

Find all of the documents, pictures and other files that are important to you and move them to a central location on your computer. Having documents on your desktop and root folder of your C drive and all kinds of miscellaneous folders is not only a headache when you try to find something, but it will make backing up even harder and waste a lot of space.

The most important part of preparing for a computer crash is to save copies of your work on more than just your single hard drive. You can backup your data by Manual Backup, Backup Software or Backup Media.

Manual Backup.
This is the cheapest option in the short run. However, if you forget to make a regular backup yo u will loose some of your work. This option will likely also take you more time.

Backup Software
You can also choose from several pieces of software that will automate the process and make it much simpler and faster. The big advantage for this is that you can set backups to run at varying frequencies and at times while you aren’t using the computer. See the resource area for several backup solutions.

Backup Media
Regardless of how you backup your computer files, you must have a place to back up your files. You can look for online backup websites that will give you so much space to use for free or a small price. The problem with this is that it can be very slow depending on the speed of your ISP. The biggest advantage however, is that they are likely to have backup servers themselves. You’re next likely choice is to buy a second hard drive. You can buy an internal or external drive. This will give you the quickest way to backup your files on a regular basis. Finally, you can also prepare for a crash by saving your files onto CD or DVD. You will need a CD or DVD writer but these are common on most computers. Optical media like CDs or DVDs however, have a limited lifetime and can get scratched or lost. This is a good secondary backup source but shouldn’t be your own or primary source. A portable USB drive is a very good place to save files to also, but it has the same risks of an optical device. It can be lost or broken.

Regularly check your backups to make sure they will work when you use them. You can do this by opening your files and make sure they work but if you are using a program test it out, make sure you protect your files in at least one other place in case the backup software has a problem and corrupts your files.

Make a list of all the software you have installed on your computer. Find this software and make sure you have a working copy and have the serial number. This is also a good idea to make a backup of your programs.

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