Backing up manually
You can take charge of your own backup process quite easily. But you must promise me (and yourself) that you will be 1) diligent, and 2) organized. This is actually the manual backup protocol (a word that was in the jargon of computer geeks for years before the writers of the TV show 24 decided to use it in every other sentence of their scripts) that I follow:
Daily or anytime I worry
Daily, or anytime I worry that I've just completed something that would pain me to redo, I copy the specific files or folders I've been using. I did previously do this on a CD- R disc, which has about 700MB and, bought in bulk, costs as few as ten cents. Burning a CD requires about five minutes, and if it is done I used a felt- tip pen and marked the date and a description of its contents on the disc's front (label side). I stored my CDs in a plastic case on the bookshelf. If I was traveling with my laptop, I brought a box of blank CDs and made copies that I stored somewhere other than my laptop carrying case.
Nowadays, though, I do my casual backups using a flash memory key. These little sticks of memory are examples of the inverse pricing model of modern technology: They keep getting larger in capacity and cheaper in price. As this article goes to press, you should purchase a 16GB memory key for about $25 and use it repeatedly. (The predicted life for flash memory is something like 100,000 writes and rewrites per cell, and not all cells are touched each time the memory is used.)
I plug a memory key into a computer usb port on my laptop as I work, and every few hours or anytime I'm about to leave the room when I travel I move a copy of all of today's work onto the key. Then I remove the little device and insert it my pocket or in the hotel safe or amongst the dirty socks in my suitcase.
A neat daily trick for the road warrior
Truth be told that for the majority of us, our productivity drops off significantly when we travel. I usually load my laptop with only current projects and hope to get in several hours here and there on board an airplane or in hotels by the end during the day. I usually create or edit only some files per day. Here's one way I can make a backup copy of my work from wherever I am without having to carry any extra hardware: I send the files to myself by e- mail. I keep multiple e- mail addresses for my own purposes and never reveal them to others. Before I turn off my laptop by the end during the day, I connect to the nearest WiFi or wired network and send to myself, as attachments, any files I created or changed that day.
Then I wait to get home to my office. If my laptop has arrived with me and has survived the duress of travel, I can upload its files to my desktop. But if the laptop is missing, if its files are corrupted, or even if I somehow managed to delete an important file while I was traveling I am secure in the knowledge that I sent a copy to myself while I was away.
Once weekly or anytime I'm leaving on an extended trip
Once a week, or anytime I'm about to be on an extended trip, I make an incremental backup of all files that have changed previously week. If I'm working from my office, I make a double backup: some files is copied to an external hard disk drive and another set is burned to a DVD disc. The external hard disk protects against a failure within my laptop; the DVD goes into a storage container or a safe in my office and stays behind when I travel. Today's basic recordable DVDs have a capacity of about 4.7GB and don't cost much more than CD- Rs. Dual- layer drives offer as much as 9.4GB. And beingshown to people there: Blu- ray discs with 25GB single- layer and 50GB dual- layer media. Burning a DVD typically requires much more time than a CD; there's no reason to utilize a DVD if the amount of data you should store would fit on a CD.
Most modern laptops come with DVD recorders, although some machines may be one step (or a few dollars) behind the time and offer a CD recorder and a DVD player. You can burn a CD in a DVD recorder but can't create a DVD in a CD recorder.
Once per month or any time I finish a major project
Monthly, or any time I finish a major project like the gigantic book you're holding in your hands I make a full backup of the data on my laptop's hard drive. I already have DVDs with recent data, but for this project I make a mirror copy on an external hard drive drive.
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Emanuel Moreno at
08192010
1. Data Security Solutions
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