Data backup tips
January 25, 2007
I’ve suffered through a few huge loses of data over the years. Not from a lack of knowledge, but more from becoming complacent. You have to accept the reality that computer hardware will fail, eventually. As much as I’ve become dependent on technology to complete professional and personal tasks, and as much as I know about the risks, I still occasionally slip into complacency and get burned.
You should take it seriously. The last thing you want is your spouse screaming at you that you lost a few years of family digital photos.
Two years ago was my last bad experience. Six months of professional emails lost because my company had no proactive means of backing up Outlook archives at the time. We were encouraged to archive our email to our hard drive, not the network. I found out the hard way when my hard drive crashed hard and a data recovery firm said it was unsalvagable.
WHAT DID I LEARN?
1. Losing data isn’t the end of the world. Sure it sucks. I struggled for several months afterwards because much of my professional correspondence was lost. But I survived.
2. Take matters into my own hands. Since the company didn’t (at the time) have an archive process in place, I started having my email archive files burned to DVD once per month. I also started saving HTML or TEXT versions of important emails to our network project folders to help make sure there was redundant documentation.
3. On a personal level, I’ve looked more carefully at how I save my personal files. Backing up is time consuming. So I prioritized and worked out a method I’m comfortable with.
Monthly: I have an external hard drive and perform a full backup of my main hard drive personal files at the end of each month. That gets backed up to CD/DVD. Getting into the habit of backing up every 1-2 weeks would be ideal. My preferred hard drive is the Seagate ST3400601CB-RK 400 GB External Hard Drive FireWire/USB 2.0
Quarterly: At last count, I have over five thousand digital photos over the past three years. So every three months I sort through them, delete the bad ones, and burn a complete backup to CDs or DVDs.
Yearly: I do a full backup of my digital music files once a year. This is the least important to me since I have the physical, original CD for most of what I listen to. Music can always be bought again, but family photos and other personal document cannot be replaced so easily.
4. Store an extra set of backup CDs/DVDs offsite. Big companies have long known it is essential for disaster preparedness to maintain full backups at an offsite location. That way if the primary facility is damaged, backups located far away presumably maybe safe. So when backing up to CD or DVD, make an extra set and keep it some where you think is far away or safe, such as a relative’s house or your bank’s deposit box.
Backup, Backup, Backup.
5. We still don’t fully understand how long CDs and DVDs will last. Plus, some studies indicate that cheaper media may degrade at a faster rate. There are actually very few manufacturers, and most of the brands found on shelves are just repackaged/rebranded versions. Take some time, do the research. Consider paying more for archival quality media.
DEVELOP YOUR STRATEGY AND STICK TO IT!
Photos and video are tricky. With consumer adoption of digital photos and digital video, come new challenges. Shoe boxes of film negatives served us well for many decades, but now it’s time to rethink and retrain people’s behavior.
Photos are easy to burn from your PC to CD/DVD. But what about your video? I specifically bought a camcorder with A/V input so I can import old analog video from VHS tapes and 8mm video into MiniDV. I can pull from any device (VCR, tape deck, Tivo) that has traditional composite connections. That makes it simpler to keep the most important older footage on a current media that is easier to import eventually to a PC for editing or burning to DVD.
UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENT TYPES OF MEDIA
VideoHelp.com Details on DVD
PCWorld: Backup Medium Comparison Chart
GET STARTED. READ ABOUT BACKUP STRATEGIES:
MacWorld: Make your images last
The Mac Observer: Dr. Mac’s Guide to Backing Up Your Mac
PCWorld: Keep Your Data Backups Safe, Simple, and Fast
PCWorld: Backup data to separate partition
What do you think? Please post your comments or suggestions. Thanks.
Roland
Artwork Source:
Hard drive image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Harddisk-head.jpg
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