Backing Up
To avoid losing all your hard work in a random hard-drive crash, it’s important to make copies of all your important files. In computing, these are generally known as “backups.” We absolutely recommend you make backup copies of all your work, from early drafts to finished files. In its simplest form, this can involve regularly burning copies of your latest files onto CDs or DVDs. On a larger scale, various companies offer programs and equipment that can make backing up simple and automatic.
Dantz’s Retrospect (http://www.dantz.com/en/products/index.dtml) is one of the most pervasive programs for making backups on PCs and Macs. You can schedule it to automatically scan every computer on your network nightly and back up the files and directories you specify. Retrospect’s competitors include Norton Ghost (http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/) and Acronis TrueImage (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).
Mac OS X users might also consider Carbon Copy Cloner (http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html). It lacks many of Retrospect’s more sophisticated features but provides a simple and reliable way to make regular backups. Carbon Copy Cloner is free to download, but its author requests a small donation if you’re happy with the product.
Where should you store your backup information? The two leading solutions are tape drives, which store information on magnetic tape in high-capacity removable cartridges, and ordinary hard drives. Some hard drives are designed especially for backups; they come with special software that allows you to back up your entire network at the push of a button. Hard drives can also be easier to configure and less expensive than tape drives.
However, tape drives last longer than hard drives. You don’t have to keep them at your office, which can prove useful in the event of theft, flood or fire. You can also make multiple copies of a single tape, so that if one tape containing your crucial files dies, another is ready to take its place. And if you need more storage space, you can simply buy more tape cartridges.
Whichever kind of backup solution you choose, don’t forget to test the data recovered by a backup to make sure you can access the information successfully.
