Watching Your Back (Backing-up Your Computer Files)
NuNo asked Tablet PC expert and fellow road-warrior Jeff Van West what he thought about backups and here’s what he said:
Most people think of a backup as one thing — a second copy of their files. This is only part of a true backup strategy and not a solid plan to keep your data safe. Remember there are three situations where you may go to your backup and you must protect for all three. First you may have a lost or corrupted file. Just one measly file. This scenario is where the single backup often fails when you discover you backed up the corrupted file over the good one yesterday, but only discovered the problem today. Having one backup is almost as useless as have none.
Incremental backups fix this where they keep the last X number of versions of a file. This lets you walk back in time and is an excellent option. They can be more cumbersome though and take a long time to retrieve your data. Rotating backups (backup A on Monday, backup B on Tuesday, etc.) are another good option.
A second backup scenario is losing your computer to a virus or hardware failure. Here you want all your files. Most people think about this issue when they think about backups. In this case, it's good to have a complete copy of your files so you can get back to work on another computer quickly. This is a good use for an internet backup solution. You should make sure one of your backups is at least five miles — but preferably a couple time zones — away from your current location. There may come a day when circumstance forces you to leave your laptop and all your backups behind. (Think, tsunami.) Unfortunately, people often forget to backup all the other files they have — applications, bookmarks, even email databases and attachments — that they want as well.
So this invokes the third backup strategy, the complete system backup. This is an image of your entire hard drive you can use to bring a replacement computer up to speed in hours rather than days.
Then there is also the issue of getting to your backup from the road and what you need to do with that data and how fast you need to do it.
What you want is a comprehensive backup strategy that covers your bases. Personally, I have a daily program that just copies items I changed that day. It does this for a week to backup file A, then does it for a week to backup file B, then it switches back to backup file A, erases it, and starts anew. These files are small and will fit on a 1-2GB flash drive. I can go back and get old versions if a file corrupts no problem. I use Microsoft’s backup utility for this because it’s free and gets the job done acceptably
Every week or so, I backup all the files using a backup program that synchronizes my hard drive with an external drive. I use an old copy of something called SynchroMagic, not because it’s a great program. I just happen to own it and it does work. This keeps a second copy of all my documents, web favorites, and outlook data files. When I think of it, I mirror those files to a friends server on the West Coast, just in case Canada invades Maine (where I live) and confiscates everyone’s computer.
Every 1-3 months I mirror the hard drive onto the same external drive. I use an old version of Norton Ghost that came with the external hard drive. (Can you see the cheap-screw Yankee theme coming out here?)
Backup Programs: There are many other backup solutions out. I’ve heard good things about SyncBack, which is shareware. It has options to handle all the backup scenarios. Whatever you use though, the key is implementing something that covers the three scenarios and happens automatically or easily so you actually do it. [For more on Tablet PCs, working on the road, or effective use of computers in getting your work done, contact Jeff Van West].