Watch Your Back! Back Up Strategies

Last week one of my dear friends had her hard drive crash. She lost everything – emails, photos, business documents, financial records.... And I’m sure you know someone who tells the same story.  Hopefully, not you!

Do you back up your important files regularly? And if you do, can you restore those files if something goes wrong?

There are two major types of backups: archives, and emergency restoration.

Archiving refers to saving your essential files so that you have them forever. If you want to keep data for the long term, you need to make copies. The very best method is to burn a DVD. You can also store the files on a hard drive.

One benefit of archiving is that you can also remove the files from your computer to make extra space. For items like movies, one file can be 5GB, eating up your hard drive!

However, no one really knows how long DVDs will last. Some estimates are 20 years or more, but some say that a CD is only good for 10 years or so.

More importantly, the question is whether or not you still have the software to open old files! Technology has approximately a 5-year life span.  While I still have my college thesis papers written on Word and saved to disk, 20 years have gone by. Microsoft Word can no longer open those files!

Another customer had her entire family history in a very old Windows computer, and I still haven’t heard if she’ll be able to open the data on her new genealogy program.

So here’s the thing. It’s CRUCIAL that every 5-10 years you open your files and resave them into the current versions of the software. Then, reburn the CD/DVD. That way, you not only have a fresh copy but an updated copy as well.

If you have important data saved, I also highly recommend exporting it to a text file (.txt or .csv) as a backup, and save it alongside the native copy. That way, you can import it into Excel or Word and reformat it for the new application you want to use it in. This same technique will also allow you, for example, to convert your Hotmail contacts list into Apple’s Address Book.

The second kind of backup is Emergency backup. What if your hard drive failed, your computer was stolen, or your house caught on fire?

Or worse, yet more common, you accidentally save over your work and lose something you needed? That “ooops” moment is the worst feeling in the world.

That’s where OSX 10.5 Leopard’s Time Machine feature comes in.  All you need is an external hard drive bigger than the size of your computer. Plug it in and turn it on.

Every hour, Time Machine will back up all the changes you make to your computer, and it will save all those changes weekly until you fill up the hard drive! That way, if you delete a file, corrupt a file, or save over a file, all you have to do is click on the file in Time Machine, then click the Restore button.

You’ll be treated to a stellar deep-space time warp visual as the file is instantly resaved to your computer. Breathtaking, and easy!

Time Machine is NOT good for permanent archiving, since it drops off the oldest backups after the drive is full. But it has saved my bacon many many times in the last year.

And if your old computer dies, all you have to do is plug it into your new computer and you’ll have your system back, just the way it was.  That can’t be beat!

Time Machine is already installed (read: FREE!) on your Mac running 10.5. Hard drives run $99 and up depending on the size.  Is your peace of mind worth less than that?