The Computer
Guy's TroubleShooting Pages
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Backing
up your files
- How
to backup your files. Media choices.
How that process can go wrong -
schedules, slow connections, backup
failures, restores and error
messages.
Updated
8/5/99
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The Basics
... Why you backup.
- . Backups are
essential. All Harddrives will die. Floppies are
unreliable. Tape has a definite lifespan.
Properly cared-for, CD's will outlast your
computer and your next computer.
- . The files you
create and your need to access a backup can be
broken down into three catagories.
- 1] Your hard drive dies and you
need to access the last backup of a file due
today. OR you accidently throw away a folder
with a file you need. OR you open a file, change
it dramatically and save it - overwritting the
original version. You can find last night's
backup on: the harddrive or Zip or network drive
you dragged a copy to last nite. Time: 1 minute.
Or you can restore the file from yesterday's
tape backup. Time: 30 minutes.
- 2] The last file you imported
into your document last night, was a corrupt
EPS. Now the file will not open. The backup last
night also saved the corrupted file, so you need
to access the backup from two days ago. OR, if
you make sequential saves, you just need to find
MyFile04 &endash; the incremental file save from
two days ago.
- 3] Last night the roof leaked,
both the server backup system AND your computer
were trashed. You need to access the backup tape
that was stored in a fire-proof box - safe from
the water damage.
- 4] A client needs the file
created six months ago, they are willing to pay
25% of the original fee for the file. You go to
the Archive shelf, pull ThatCompCD#3 from the
shelf and transfer the project to a Zip and
courier it to the client.
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- The Reality
- 1] Last night was so hectic, you
forgot to drag the file to the backup volume,
you will have to recreate the changes that took
you all day, yesterday to do. You loose the
client. Cost $thousands.
- 2] You never do incremental Save
As. Using just the Save command, you realize the
entire project needs to be redone. Your boss
asks you why you aren't better prepared.
- 3] Last night the roof leaked,
all the tapes were sitting on the shelf with the
server and are damaged. A file recovery service
quotes a $100/megabyte recovered.
- 4] You only back up to tape. The
tapes from that period were a format that you
don't have a drive mechanism for. None of your
friends have that size tape drive. You explain
to the client, you no longer have those
files.
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- The Ideal
- 1] All your files (the documents
you create) are automatically copied onto a
server hard drive twice a day. You never know
it's happening but you can access a four hour
old file in two minutes.
- 2] Once every hour you are
prompted to do an incremental save of your
project. It has become second nature. You open a
previous version and recreate the lost two hours
of work.
- 3] Each weekday, all new and
modified files on everyone's computers are
backed up. Only today's tape is removed from the
datasafe. Each end of month a complete backup of
all computers is done and taken off-site. You
take the tape to your backup server and recreate
your files.
- 4] As projects are completed, the
files, imported graphics, project notes, and
fonts are collected to a folder with job number.
The folder is stuffed into a self-extracting
archive and written to the client's set of
CD's.
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- More Information
- . Retrospect
costs $150. It is a quality program and can
backup Macs and PC's across a network. It is
sciptable and backups can be set to happen any
time any day of the week or month. Media
supported include most tape drives (drive
mechanisms $600 to $1200 &endash; 2.6Gb media
$15) , Zips (drive mechanisms $129 &endash; 94Mb
media $10), Jaz (drive mechanisms $300 - 2Gb
media $100), and writeable CD-ROMs (drive
mechanisms $450 &endash; 650Mb media
$2.00).
- . Dantz
publishes Retrospect and their site, www.dantz.com
is a great source for information on hardware
and backup strategies. Recommended.
. Shareware
programs are available that will synchronize two
folders (a folder on your hard drive where you save
all files &endash; and a folder on another local
harddrive, Zip, or server volume) This means you
will always have two copies of all your files
immediately available.
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