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Introduction I think everyone at some point has experienced a loss of computer data. It happens when you least expect it. I remember a time in college when I lost a term paper when my Mac diskette failed. I had to re-type the paper from scribbled notes and memory. I learned the hard way to always back up my data, and to back it up daily. Hard drives crash. Uncle Rico may send you an unsuspecting computer virus or worm. You delete a file and need to recover it. Over the years, my data backup strategy has evolved. In the mid-90s, I used Iomega Ditto tape. It was expensive, unreliable, & slow. In contrast, my current method is cheap, reliable, and fast. Let me tell you about it... Which Files Should I Back-Up? The following short list contains a few suggestions for which types of data you will probably want to back-up:
Extra Storage: Hard Drives First, I suggest having at least 2 hard drives in your system. Hard drives are relatively cheap. A 80GB drive is plenty of space for me. Your situation might be different. An external USB drive is an excellent option to consider. My 1st drive is a 40GB C: drive and it is reserved for my Windows operating system (e.g. Windows XP) and my software programs (e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office). My second hard drive is a 80GB D: drive and it contains my data files. My D: drive contains a single folder called "Karhoff Data" which contains 2 sub-folders, "Troy" and "Cristen." All my Word docs, photos, web designs, finance and tax files are kept in my "Troy" folder. I'm not a big fan of the Windows default location "C:\Documents and Settings\Troy\My Documents." I prefer to have my data on a separate drive apart from my OS. If your files, documents, photos, music, etc are scattered all over your file system and desktop, you're going to have a challenge backing-up your data. Get organized. Back-up Software: Robocopy The software I use to automate my back-ups is called Robocopy. It is bundled in the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools. Click the link to download the kit and install on your machine. Once you have robocopy installed, you need to write a small batch file (e.g. DataBackup.bat) that tells Robocopy which files to back-up & where to back them up. View my robocopy batch file. I back-up my files twice. I first back-up my data to D:\Karhoff Data\TroyDataBackup, then I copy it over to C:\TroyDataBackup. Robocopy is very fast because it only copies new and changed files. It skips files that are already backed-up and have not changed since the last back-up. The Robocopy help file describes the syntax and what each option can do for you. While You Sleep... I schedule the back-up to run every morning at 4:00am while I am sound asleep. Windows comes with a built-in scheduler: Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks. Use the wizard to Add Scheduled Task and tell it to run your Robocopy batch file according to any schedule you wish. After you get your back-ups automatically running every night, there's not much else to worry about. I monitor my disk usage to ensure I don't max out my drive. DVD media DVD-R media is capable of storing more than 4GB of data. I setup a monthly appointment in Outlook which reminds me to back-up my important data to my re-writable DVD. Before DVDs, I used a CD burner - same concept. Having your data on separate media is always a good idea in the event of a major problem where all your disks are corrupted all at once. If you really want to go the extra mile, deposit your DVD back-up in your bank lock box. Closing I encourage you to start a back-up strategy for yourself. Even if you don't use robocopy, at the very least you should have an extra hard drive and drag-n-drop your important files periodically. Give it a shot. Good luck. |
How to Back-Up Data