The Green Geek:  How to backup your computer

Dear Geek,

 

Thanks for the articles on viruses. I’m now worried that my data is not saved in case a virus attacks or my computer breaks down. I know I should be backing up all my data, but I don’t know how to do this. There are lots of programs on the internet that claim to be a good backup solution, but I’m really really confused.  Please explain!

 

Best regards,

Back Up Against The Wall

 

Dear Mr. Wall, 

 

Backing up is a big and complicated topic, but one thing is absolutely certain -if you do not back up, you will lose your important data. 

 

Let’s take a look at the sorts of data you may need to back up.  Some people want to back up their entire computer, including the operating system, all installed applications, their email and various documents.   Other people only want to back up their important work files, like Word documents, MYOB accounting files, and perhaps their email.  

 

The benefit of backing up your entire computer – a process sometimes referred to as a disk image backup – is that should your computer become messed up, you can restore everything in one process: the operating system and all applications get restored along with your precious data. This is great if you are not keen to manually install lots of software one package at a time!  However, disk image backups can be very slow to save (depending upon how you do them!) and usually do not let you restore just a couple of damaged work files.

 

The benefits of backing up just your work files is that you can restore only the files that you need should a problem occur. You can also use the backup to transfer all of your files from a different computer, should the need arise.

 

Disk images are  a useful backup approach for nurseries, since  it is likely that you’ll need to restore your entire computer – including all applications - after a catastrophic failure. There are a number of good software solutions that can back up your entire computer’s hard drive. One of the best known is Norton Save & Restore (http://www.symantec.com/norton/save-restore) which not only offers full disk backup, but also incremental backups. With incremental backups, only files that have changed since your previous backup are saved, which dramatically lessens the time required to back up your computer.  A similar product is Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com.au). There are dozens of similar products on the market. 

 

A slightly different approach to whole disk backups is to use a RAID1 drive.  What’s that?  RAID stands for “Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives.”  I kid you not.   Put simply, a RAID drive is actually a bit of hardware that holds two (or more) physical hard disks.  When set to RAID1 mode (also called mirroring mode) anything saved on the first hard disk is instantly copied onto the other hard disks in the RAID drive.  Better still, you can remove the second hard disk and replace it with a new drive, and the entire first disk will be automatically copied to newly inserted disk. This gives you instant backup every second of the day! Simply replace the second hard disk each day with the previous day’s hard disk, and you have a simple and quick backup solution.

 

In fact, this is the type of backup I personally use.  I use an ARAID 99 100L from Accordance Systems (http://www.accordancesystems.com).  Unfortunately, RAID1 drives are not available for notebooks – they are a bit big to fit inside! However, you can get external RAID drives, like the D-LINK DNS-323 (http://www.dlink.com.au/Products.aspx?Sec=1&Sub1=29&Sub2=90&PID=287). 

 

If you do opt for a RAID1 drive, you will need to be prepared to set up the hardware or get a computer technician to help you set it up. Setting up a RAID1 drive is a little more tricky than installing backup software, and a lot more expensive, but you’ll save a lot of time in the long run.

 

Rather than backing up an entire computer, you can also look for applications that back up just your work files. A little known feature of Windows XP is that it has a rather good backup utility. To locate it, click on the start menu, then Accessories, System Tools and finally Backup. While not as full-featured as some  dedicated backup applications, it’s good enough for most of us.  Once you have started the Microsoft XP Backup utility, it will guide you through your backup options. All you need to do is select which files you want backed up and then select where you want the backup to be copied to. If possible, save your backups to rewritable DVDs or CD-ROMs, or some other form of removable media.  

 

No matter what type of backup you decide on, it is important to remember that a backup is only useful if it is not stored in the same location as your computer. Think what would happen if your office burnt down – If you have your backups held off site, then you can get your business back up and running by simply getting new computers.  However, if your backups were in the office with all your smoldering computers… well then, it is a much more serious situation.

 

Which brings us to the last point on backups. How long do you need to keep a backup?  Depending upon how often your information changes and how critical it would be if you lost it, you should keep your backups at least a week, and in some cases months or years. You need to decide on a ‘backup roster.’   For example, perhaps you have two DVD-ROMs where you save your backup. One is used for the current day and the other for the previous day (alternating between the two DVD-ROMs). This means that should a disaster occur, you will always be able to restore from the previous day.  

 

But what if you only back up weekly?  In this case, you could use four sets of DVD-ROMs, one for each week of the month. In this way, you would be able to restore information from up to a month ago, which is useful should a virus creep undetected into your computer and accidentally be backed up (sneaky viruses!).   Following is a simple backup roster that I use for my home office. It requires 5 sets of backups, giving me weekly, monthly and even yearly recovery.  It’s a very easy schedule to follow and does not take a lot of time to manage, so should be good for most time-pressed horticulturalists.