Backing Up - Preliminary Thoughts

As time passes you will accumulate information in various forms and you come to realise that it would be a disaster if you were to lose it.

The logical course is to keep a copy of everything you consider important.

This is called backing up.

 

There are three levels of backing up security;

1.    Putting a copy on your hard drive in another folder

2.    Putting a copy on a separate removable hard drive or memory stick

3.    Keeping the backup copy off site, perhaps in a cool spot in your car

Generally speaking

 

What NOT to Back Up

Installed programs need NOT be backed up ...

After all, you’ve got all your original software CDs in a shoebox in a safe place haven’t you !?

And, depending on your level of paranoia, you may keep second copies of these discs elsewhere, e.g. Mum’s place.

So, if you need them you’ve got them.

Backup problems are all addressed by a good backup package. See Backing Up - Do It

Good does not mean the latest or the most complicated, just a package that does the job simply and does not create exotic problems when it comes to the time to recover some lost stuff.

A backup program only updates those files/stuff that has changed since the last time.

Believe me, the time will come when you will bless a good backup!

Simple is good!

Remember: It’s not an effective backup unless it’s kept off site.

 

Media

 

FLOPPY DISCS are no longer good enough. Their capacity is too small and they are unreliable.

ZIP DISCS have simply become outdated and have been replaced by the pen drive.

The PEN DRIVE or MEMORY STICK is a small device which plugs into a USB socket. Its capacity is typically from 1Gb to 32Gb. It has become the major small external storage medium.

CDR discs will store 650Mb or more on a disc. They are cheap but inconvenient.

CDRW re-writeable discs are problematic but allow stuff to be written and replaced. Also inconvenient.

DVD discs may also be used. They will store 4.7Gb or more. The same conditions apply to these as CDs

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES are available with capacities up to 1Tb and more. They plug into a USB socket.

Pen drives and external hard drives are now affordable. A 320Gb external USB unit costs around $100 at the time of writing. These drives are the simplest backup storage solution, especially for XP and Windows 7 users. For earlier operating systems a driver is required.

To start with, use a PEN DRIVE or MEMORY STICK with a small capacity - say 2Gb minimum. You will eventually succumb to an EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE.

The My Documents folder is a feature designed by Microsoft as the place to keep most of your stuff. The organisation of where you save your stuff is important. Some packages, for example Quicken which is a home accounts package, do not save their stuff/files in My Documents but in some place on the C: hard drive. You will need to backup this stuff also. Your eMail and mail address book also need to be backed up but you will find they are more difficult to locate.

As the number of files in a folder grows, the folder may become unwieldy. My Documents is the main folder to suffer from this problem so create a sub-folder structure.

For example, in My Documents create the folders Peter, Golf Club, Legal, or whatever you need. Then move the files from My Documents into the appropriate sub-folder. You can further sub-divide by creating folders in Peter ... say Garden and House

If as well as Peter there is a Mary using the computer, the simplest method is to maintain the single user login to Windows and create a Mary folder in My Documents with Mary's appropriate folder structure.

Once you have created a folder structure it is important to remember to save new stuff into the appropriate folder. When you first use a folder structure it is easy to forget to navigate to the correct folder as you save your stuff.

You will note that there are some other folders already in My Documents, My Pictures is just one example. It may be convenient to use this communally but it will be necessary to create a sub-folder structure within My Pictures with each group of pictures in its own folder. Use folder names like Easter 2007 and Xmas 2008 for example. Peter may choose to have a folder in his own area for his pictures. These are decisions you will make as necessary.

It is best to retrieve a file for editing by opening the appropriate editor and then clicking File / Open and navigating to the correct folder. When you save the file it will automatically replace the old with the new in the correct folder.