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It's rule numero uno - the most important, essential, imperative tip. The most necessary, and often most overlooked, step: Back up. If there were a list of PC rules, back up would be numbers one and two, and maybe three as well. It's that vital - or at least, it will be the moment you experience a system crash, or accidentally spill Mountain Dew Code Red all over your hard drive.
While we've covered the topic of back up before (more than once), we thought instead of telling you what to do, perhaps it would be equally as instructive to tell you what not to do. So, if you find yourself doing any of the eleven things listed below, take a pause and remember rule one. You'll thank us the next time you have an unexpected power failure. If there's a back up blunder that we've missed, or a horror story you'd like to share, then add it in the comments.
Using a tool like SyncToy or RoboCopy to replicate files to an alternate location may very well meet your needs for data recovery, but make sure you understand the differences between file synchronization and true backup. Having your files in multiple locations will help you quickly recover from critical hardware failure, but if a file is accidently overwritten or corrupted you may simply end up with multiple copies of bad data. Configuration is a key factor in most file replication tools as it will determine what to do when a potential file conflict occurs.
File replication is great as a first line of defense and can be incredibly easy to use, but it’s not a perfect solution for every scenario. Educate yourself on the pros and cons of synchronization as a backup strategy and make sure it meets your needs before trusting it with your data.
Which of your data would you miss the most if your computer went up in a spectacular burst of flame? Your backup plan may change drastically depending on how you answer this question. If you use your computer for work then you may need to back up email and documents more frequently. Pictures and videos of your family may be your most important data, in which case a weekly or monthly schedule may be more reasonable due to sheer size of your files and how frequently you add to your media library.
Whatever kind of data is precious to you will likely impact your backup plan significantly. Make sure to prioritize and adjust your backup schedules in a way that makes the most sense based on how critical the data is and how often you can afford to back it up. Most backup software will even allow you to run multiple jobs on disparate schedules if you need the additional flexibility.
One of the hardest decisions when planning your backup strategy is how you will store the actual backup data. Optical media like DVD’s can be a cheap option, but are not particularly convenient for storing large amounts of data. Conversely, an external hard drive or NAS box is extremely convenient, but all those moving parts can be susceptible to hardware failure. Flash memory like a thumb drive is extremely convenient and offer increasingly larger storage capacities, but they can be easily lost or stolen.
The best case scenario is probably a combination of multiple media types. A NAS box is extremely handy for storing recent backups or mirroring your critical data. DVD’s are perfect for long-term backups, though you should make sure that your backup software allows for larger backups to be broken into smaller chunks. USB thumb drives are best used for on-the-fly backups of data that you may need to get to in a hurry, or for files that you don’t want lumped in with everything else.
If you have data that needs to be accessible for long periods of time, it may be a good idea to consider updating the type of media you use once in a while. How many of us still have data on 3.5" floppy drives? Keeping your backup media in a central location can serve as a visual reminder to help prevent data loss due to a technological incompatibility.
Do you have any idea how enticing backup files can be to someone looking to steal your information? You have a single file, compressed, with all of your most important data. Throw in a colorful bow and you’ve just gift wrapped the perfect target for an interested party with nefarious intentions.
There are two parts to any computer security problem, and your backups are no exception. The first issue is physical security. If all of your backups are on a bright orange external drive that is clearly labeled “BACKUP” then you might need to re-think your physical security strategy. The second thing to consider is your data itself. Encrypting your backup files can be a quick and easy method of preventing someone from stealing your financial records for the last ten years, just make sure you have the password to decrypt those files should the need ever arise.
There could be any number of reasons why someone would want to steal or destroy your backup files. Remember, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you (and your data).
Frequent backups are always a good idea, but they can cut down on your backup retention. So what do you do if you are running daily backups, but don’t realize for several weeks that you’ve lost a file? Hopefully you still have an old copy of that backup from last Tuesday to restore from.
Finding a balance between backup frequency and how long you want to retain individual backups can be quite the conundrum. Storing enough copies to provide you with a reasonable amount of time to discover an issue can be the difference in whether or not you can successfully restore a file. Periodically creating permanent backups should be part of your backup strategy, even if it’s done infrequently or on a manual basis. Optical media or backup tapes can be a good medium for permanent storage of backup files, or you can simply copy a single backup to an alternate location to prevent it from being overwritten.
Comments are closed on this article
GetOutOfBox
May 30, 2011 at 12:29am
Only a small amount of my files are irreplacable, most of the time in cases such as malware infection, bogged down OS, etc, I move about 10GB of files to a temporary partition and just format the rest.
All my games are on Steam, I don't have tons of music (I have a library of songs I like, rather than entire albums of artists that I like), pictures have long been archived on to DVD's, I keep movies in DVD form, or on my iPod. I use a transferal software to move files from my iPod back into iTunes after a format. Basically, a structured backup system is not something I particularly need.
roleki
May 27, 2011 at 8:02pm
There's really no reason for Windows-mostly homes to *not* have WHS running somewhere... it's dirt cheap and flat-out works (though the disappearance of drive extender does diminish the otherwise-magical quality of WHS overall).
DDRDiesel
May 27, 2011 at 6:42am
I'm using Acronis Backup and Recovery 10, I use it for my clients as well as myself. I make sure that the backups get stored and encrypted onto my 500GB drive I installed just for backups and important data. If the backup is the proper size, I will also burn it onto a DVD-DL. In this scenario, if my main drive were to fail, I could load up a dummy copy of Windows with the software, take the backup of my computer, and image it to the new drive. I've been thinking of taking my home server (Currently using for local storage for family members, keep files centralized) and using it as a backup server by throwing in two drives in RAID 1 through Windows. This way, not only is the backup in another location for easy access (For me, not for anyone else), but the RAID would keep things nice and safe for the forseeable future.
EdgeTrigger
May 27, 2011 at 6:21am
Cheap and effective:
Buy $20 usb/esata multidrive dock, buy a couple of hard drives off Newegg (not seagate crap)
Make first drive bootable, boot from it esata or usb , image the whole computer. Use second drive for random saving of data that changes, MyDocs, bookmarks, E-mail pst, music, etc...
now if your main drive dies, replace it, restore image, update important stuff and you are back in action
RUSENSITIVESWEETNESS
May 26, 2011 at 7:21pm
Once you're into the terabyte range of data, there seems no good way to create backups beyond secondary and tertiary hard drives. No one has mentioned burning data onto Blu-Ray discs, so I assume that's cost-prohibitive. I'd not use a cloud service with my Comcast cap of 250Gb/month.
I burn my music onto DVDs, and I've a couple hundred or more of those now. Music takes the lion's share of my archival data. If my hard drive got nuked right now, I'd lose a lot of music 've not processed into my permanent collection. For that reason, the only backup system that makes sense to me would be spare external hard drives I copy everything onto then store in a closet.
It kinda blows that there's no other practical media around for backing up the volumes of data we've amassed.
We're just greedy little data hogs....
ShyLinuxGuy
May 26, 2011 at 6:56pm
I used to burn DVD's for backups (and still do occasionally) but now I just have a folder called "new" on my desktop. I fill it with whatever I'm working on or have downloaded, and it's organized into categories; music, wallpapers, videos, programs, projects and miscellaneous. I have a server strictly for backup which is encrypted, and any DVDs I burn have certain folders and files compressed into a 7z file and encrypted. I also encrypt ISOs to make them a bit smaller.
I also make backups of my profile config both in Ubuntu and Windows, and my Firefox profile too.
@aarcane: I see where you're coming from, but what if the provider changes its policy or worse, goes out of business? Safer to keep and hold on to than to be at the mercy of the content provider.
aarcane
May 26, 2011 at 6:51pm
Your music and videos should not need to be backed up. any decent electronic content provider will allow you to re-download your media (hear that, itunes users? your provider sucks) and anything that you've ripped yourself (DVDs, CDs, etc.) is stored safely in your off-site storage unit so it can't get stolen, right? so if you lose your music and videos, you may have a 20 hour rip-fest, but you'd probably spend that much time backing up music and movies on a regular basis anyway, so faster backups offset the maybe of having to re-rip all your movies and music.
itzabo
May 26, 2011 at 5:13pm
I have a Media server that backs up to a secondary Hard Disk and then it backs up to a NAS box nightly.
I had the main terabyte HD fail and I had all my media back on line in 15 min.
I have about 800 GB of data and backups from my office pc and laptop and one backup is not enough!
I even backup my important work data (Years of Land Surveying Data) to the office backup server which also back's up to a NAS and HD on a office PC. Which is also backed up offsite once every 2 weeks.
Hard Drives fail with ZERO warning!
C_Sander
May 26, 2011 at 3:30pm
Wow, I'm suprised at how many of you don't have reliable backups. I am currently using Shadow Protect to image my entire 2TB hard drive to an external drive, and also using Carbonite as an offsite solution which backs up all my 'used' files incrementaly.
jac_goudsmit
May 26, 2011 at 3:30pm
I know someone who thought it would be a good idea to "back up" all her photos by converting them to video DVDs with slide shows. After she did this, she threw the original photos away.
Result: all she has now is 640x480 downsized versions of her photos, stuck in a format from which they are almost impossible to extract...
It's nice that technology has advanced us so much that even newbies can do fantastic things. Too bad it's also easier to screw up now.
aarcane
May 26, 2011 at 6:52pm
she literally would have been better off just dragging the pictures to a DVD and clicking burn... Ouch.
Blaze589
May 26, 2011 at 3:04pm
I don't backup often. What I do is have my movies music and pictures in one of three 2TB disks in my PC. If my boot disk (250GB WD) goes bad I can always reinstall windows and relink my media with the library feature in Win7. I have an 80GB 2.5" external HDD that I back up my MOST important files (music, documents, software, and family photos) that I manually update on a whim.
I'm looking into imaging programs but I always read mixed reviews from people; I just want something that works, period. For the moment I'm stuck doing it the hard way.
maseone
May 27, 2011 at 3:24am
I don't backup often, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis... oh wait, what?
FrancesTheMute
May 26, 2011 at 4:50pm
I guess I have a similar setup. My boot drive is a 120GB SSD, all of my documents and games are on other drives in the computer, so if my windows install goes to shit, I really won't lose that much.
herochild
May 26, 2011 at 2:29pm
On the topic of backups: What should I do when a volsnap error deletes my System Restore data every few days?
aarcane
May 26, 2011 at 6:54pm
1) back up your data to something more reliable
2) run a disk check, then reinstall windows
3) try again.
FrancesTheMute
May 26, 2011 at 2:10pm
Considering I work in IT and I should know better, I really don't back up my stuff at home. I know, it's shameful! Nearly all of my pictures I keep in my Macbook, which I do back up to an external drive via Time Machine, and most of them have been uploaded to Flickr and Facebook, so I guess that's a psuedo-backup. I don't back up my Windows box mainly because there's not much there that is not replaceable, I use it mostly just for gaming (although my ISP might not be happy when I have to dowload 400+ GB of Steam games!) I have a small number of documents that are important, one being my DD-214 (proof of Military honorable discharge) that I have a digital copy that I back up. I have another spare computer that at one point was set up with Windows Home Server...I should set that up again and starting doing backups of the windows machine. That might be a good project for this upcoming long weekend!
Blues22475
May 26, 2011 at 2:27pm
I am guilty of bad backup practice myself. All I really do is make an image of my hard drive put it on an external and leave it lol. I generally did that to prepare of the situation where my hard drive dies. I backup monthly so I will be somewhat up a river if my hard drive dies late in the month and I make alot of changes to my system by then.
