"You're Out Several Hundred Dollars; Here Are Your Baby Pictures"

 updated 1/29/06

The clients I say that to are very lucky. There are plenty of situations where I can't retrieve data from a malfunctioning drive and clients are faced with the choice of spending well over a thousand dollars on data recovery or kissing goodbye to reams of data. Sometimes its baby pictures, other times its large mp3 collections, and even more often, critical documents that will take hours or even days of tedious work to reconstruct.

$300. for that month's worth of business data you never saved? $500. for hundreds of baby pictures? You're getting off cheap. If I can't do it and it can still be done, you're looking at spending up to several thousand on drive surgeons like OnTrack Data that do advanced data recovery. If I ever start another computer business, that's what I'm getting into. Based in New York? I'll make a killing.

I've saved a novel. I've saved a doctoral thesis. I've saved years of email, thousands of baby pictures, and more music files than I'd ever be able to listen to. I think it's the part of my job I like the most since I get to be a bit of a hero. I've stopped tears… seriously. We've all heard the horror stories about hard drives going bam; believe me when I say you don't want to be in that situation and believe me when I say there's absolutely no reason you have to be.

About two years ago I wrote a series of articles about backing up. There's a wealth of information there, starting with the questions you should ask yourself about your backup plan and even giving some step by step instructions for a simple backup procedure using CDs. I'm surprised at how much of that information still holds true today.

Another thing that hasn't changed is that a lot, if not most of my clients still won't back up. The reasons never change. They run the gamut from "I don't know how" to "I thought I was" and my favorite "I don't have the time". You know who you are and you know that I'm right when I say you can do it and you do have the time. It's asinine to lose gigabytes of data when 1-10 minutes a week is all it would take to carry out this mundane task.

If you're not backing up, I hope I've scared some sense into you. If you are, you might find there are new products that will make the process easier, or more secure. Here are a few options to consider, some traditional and some not.

DVD and CD Backup

This was my first choice two years ago and it still is. CDs and DVDs are a fairly permanent media as compared to any other. You can also keep discs offsite in the event of a catastrophic emergency such as a fire.

External Hard Drives

Since I wrote the original series of backing up articles these have become quite popular and some really interesting products have hit the market. At their most basic, external hard drives hook up to your computer via USB or Firewire and backup via a variety of methods, some as simple as pushing a single button.

If you have more than one computer to backup, there are models that you can add to your network and each computer can back up as necessary, eliminating the need to lug the drive around. However, if portability is an important factor, models smaller than an iPod are available. Speaking of which…

iPods and Other Hard Drive Based Music Players

Not only can they play music, but you can use these in almost exactly the same fashion as more traditional external hard drives. If you don't want to spend the extra $$$ on a stand alone drive, there are worse choices than putting these roomy devices to double duty. However, their portability can be a liability as well as a boon.

USB Keys, Flash Based Music Players, And Digital Cameras

Again, these can be used in nearly the same fashion as an external hard drive. The big difference is these hold much smaller amounts of data, 2 gigabytes at most, and usually much less, making them less than ideal for some users. However, for users not needing to back up gigabytes of data, or as a means of transporting small amounts of data, these may be the right choice. They are notably less easy to damage than hard drive based devices as well.

A Google Gmail Account

If you have a Gmail account, there is a great little trick that allows your computer to treat the account as a virtual drive. Using this, you can now do quick backups on the fly, but by no means should it be considered a permanent backup solution. Take a look at the article below if you're interested. If you don't have a Gmail account and want one, email me and I'll send you an invitation.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1854493,00.asp

Unfortunately, Gmail frequently updates their service, breaking this software. As I said, by no means...

Zip Disks And Floppy Disks

Unreliable and prone to breakdown, floppies have never been a great choice for backing up. Zip disks are more reliable, but not by much. Use 'em as coasters.

A Wing and A Prayer

This time honored classic backup strategy is being used by people, businesses, and certain chief executives worldwide. Good luck with it.

Entire Document (print, email, or web page) Copyright 2005-6 by Steven M. Lastoe. All rights reserved.