What And Where Should I Backup To?

Contributed by Jay Schroyer

In a perfect world, backing up your computer files would be like brushing your teeth. It would be something that you do everyday and with little to no effort. Unfortunately, this is not always the case as computer users daily lose important and irreplaceable computer files. Whether it’s a laptop or a desktop, the importance of backing your files up cannot be stressed enough. Let’s take a look at the options available to you depending on the amount of information you have collected on your hard drive.

File collections can probably be split into two categories: lean and fat. Lean file collections contain very few files most of which aren’t accessed on a regular basis. These collections could potentially be under a gigabyte. They would consist of mostly word processing documents, perhaps a few charts, and some image files. A small office might harbor a collection like this. A fat file collection could rage on into the double-digit gigabyte range with hundreds upon hundreds of files that may include slide presentations and graphical application files like Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe® Illustrator®. An ad agency or graphic design service may house collections such as these. It’s important to make these distinctions because the size of your backup files can directly affect the type of backup equipment you might need.

Jump Drive
Jump drive technology has evolved very quickly over the last couple of years. You can purchase drives in all sizes ranging from 16 megabytes all the way up to gigabytes. They are generally about the size of a disposable cigarette lighter and interface with your computer via a USB port. The advantages to jump drives are: they are extremely easy to use, don’t take up too much space, and can potentially hold up to a gigabyte of information. Windows® XP contains almost all of the drivers needed to operate these drives so it’s very unlikely that you will have to download any information to operate them. All come with instructions featuring computer software help lines and web addresses should you need any assistance. There’s no need to catalogue as most of your info should fit on one drive if you have a lean collection of files and are a great solution for laptop backup. I’ve never had any problems with jump drives, but as with any drive, they are not infallible. Prices will range anywhere from $20 (16mb) up to $100+.

External Drive
External drives are physically much larger than jump drives, but generally come in larger memory capacity sizes. This choice would be ideal for a desktop computer that has a fat file collection. Most of the drives on the market today hold gigabytes of information, so the odds of you having too many files are pretty slim. These drives can also be connected to a network if you have multiple computers in an office that you would like to back up the files on. Again, these are also easy to use and should connect right through a USB port and show up as another drive in the “My Computer” window. Prices on external drives are a lot higher than jump drives and range anywhere from $150 and up depending on size and brand.

Data Storage Service
With increasingly faster access to the Internet, online data storage services have become very popular. This mode of backup allows you to upload your files online to an FTP site that provides almost limitless storage that are only accessible through the use of a password. Most charge a monthly maintenance fee for the storage which will include a specified amount of storage space. Even free e-mail accounts like Yahoo offer 2 gigabytes of storage for your mailbox, so you can see just how easy it is to offer a service like this. It’s important to do some homework before entrusting an online data storage service with your confidential files. Make sure they are a trusted name and have lots of safeguards in place. A great benefit of this mode is that it allows off-site backup of your files in the event of a catastrophic event at the office and can be accessed online whether you’re in the office or not.

CD or CD-RW
This is one of the most widely used forms of backup because most computers are already equipped with a CD or CD-RW burner so there is no extra hardware to purchase. Blank CDs which hold over 700 megabytes of information can be purchased for pennies a piece and with a CD-RW, they can be rewritten to with less waste. A downside to CDs is labeling, cataloguing, and storage.

ZIP Files
The WinZIP® program is not technically a mode of backup, but can be used in conjunction with a backup mode to make your life easier. WinZIP gathers and compresses files that you choose to create ZIP files which are smaller collectively in size than the original files. Think of it as shrink-wrap for computer files. As a result, you will be able to fit more ZIP files on your backup source than you normally would have with regular files. To access these files, you simply unzip them and they will appear in the application forms that they were originally created in. This program is available as a free download online and features a wizard that painlessly walks you through the process.

Most of the available forms of backup are as simple as when you save a file to one of your standard drives. You can always check out a basic computer tutorial or some sort of free computer assistance online if you’re stumped, but it seems manufacturers have tried to make most of these backup options foolproof. The options are numerous with levels of investment from very little to fairly substantial, but nothing is more expensive than permanently losing the files that you can’t afford to lose.

Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Adobe, Illustrator and Photoshop are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems, Incorporated. WinZip is a registered trademark of WinZip International LLC.

About the Author:
Jay Schroyer has worked in the client and customer service end of business for over five years in retail, advertising, and printing. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English writing and communication.

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