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by Jason Whong

How to back up your data

Why should you back up your data? Not just because it is the right thing to do; it's the practical thing to do.

Consider this - most of NASA's spacecraft had 2 of every important system installed, so that if the primary system failed, they'd be able switch to the secondary system without having to abort their mission. Most of the times, these secondaty systems aren't used at all, but they are still critical, and astrnauts won't fly without that kind of assurance.

NASA kept redundant electronics systems in reserve! Luckily, you probably don't have to do that in order to protect yourself and your productivity. But you should probably keep redundant copies of your data anyway.

Making a backup of your data is very practical, because hard drives are mechanical, and they are destined to failure at some point. Additionally, a bad crash can cause problems on your disk, which are not easy to repair.

Imagine how you'll feel when 30 seconds before that paper is due, smoke comes out of your computer, and it emanates the sounds of squealing pigs. Can you imagine what your teacher or boss would say when you had to hand it in?

So, take some steps to avoid the nightmare.

A little story about backing up

When her database was corrupted, she was unpleasantly surprised. She called me and asked me to restore the backups. I looked at her disks - some were unlabeled, some were unprotected, and I didn't have the slightest idea of where to begin.

The backups were two years old, and the man who had made them was unreachable. All of her company's data was on that machine, and it was gone. And there was a pile of ancient disks, which she called a "backup."

The dirty little secret of backing up is the fact that a backup can only be considered a backup if you know how to get your data from it when you need to.

The more obvious secret of backing up is that you have to do it more than once. Even if I had managed to restore all of the data from her backup, it would have been two years old. It was completely useless for her.

Good backup strategy

• Make backups of your data. That is, make copies of things that you made yourself; things that are irreplacable. You can never have enough of these. Don't waste your time or media by making backups of things you can easily replace, like programs. You can always install these from your original CD.
• Choose a backup method that works for you. If that means you have to buy a commercial product like Dantz Retrospect, do it. If it means you use drag and drop to make copies of folders, do that. As long as you know what you are doing.
• The first time you make a backup, try restoring your data from the backup. If you don't, you run the risk of not knowing how to get at your data when you need it.
• Consider keeping multiple backups. One place I worked at kept 4 weeks' worth of weekly backups. To do this, they used a different tape each week, and kept each of the tapes in rotation. That way, if someone accidentally deleted something that was still OK the week before, he or she could ask someone to restore it.
• Consider keeping quarterly backups. The same place I used to work at kept a backup from each quarter, and it came in handy on multiple occasions.
• Be aware of the media you use for backing up. That means knowing how durable they are, what temperatures they should be stored in, and other important care instructions. Keep in mind that some of the same things that can hose your computer can also hose your backups.
• Speaking of getting hosed, it's not always the fire that destroys your data - it's the water that they use to put out the fire that'll really get ya. Make multiple backups and keep one offsite somewhere, preferably in a fireproof, waterproof, bulletproof, and idiotproof container.

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