Why Do I Need a Backup Plan?

A backup strategy is to computer owners what a fire insurance policy is like for a home owner. The analogy is that if a disaster or accident occurs, you don't loose everything. And computer data loss is far more likely to happen than your home is to catch on fire. This analogy is not perfect, as a backup plan for a computer restores exactly what you had, while a fire insurance policy does not restore everything, some memories and treasures are irreplaceable. This is intended to be a call to action. Very few home owners do not insure their homes, but many computer owners do not back up their computers. Backing up a computer is to many people similar to putting out the garbage, not one of your favourite things to do. Don't wait for a computer crash before you think about your backup plan!

A new computer owner could say to themselves that they have very little that is important on their computer, so if it fails, I just start again. But after you have been using a computer for a while you build up useful data on the computer that would take many hours or days to re-create, and if it is storing digital photographs you could not replace them at all. It does not take most people very long to have so much data on the computer that the idea of starting again without any of your data is a painful idea. So if that is you, please keep reading.

New computer users need to realize that data on a computer is not the same as a pen and notebook, it is more fragile. The information is usually stored magnetically on a very small area that if magnetic fields were visible, you would need a microscope to view it. Some data is stored as a charge of electrons on a capacitor, and that is stored in an even smaller space. Most user's data storage is done on a hard drive which stores it magnetically. This technique has been in use for about 50 years, and it is still getting better. But a hard drive has mechanical components, including a motor and bearings thus eventually it will wear out or fail. A hard drive is manufactured to very tight tolerances, which are required to fit so much data into a small space. There is very little room for wear before it no longer works properly.

The data is made robust and permanent by storing redundant copies of the data. Data is also checked each time it is read out of memory or from a hard drive, and ECC (Error Correction Codes) is used to correct for a single bit errors when they occur. This corrects for minor read errors a byte or 32 or 64 bits at a time, invisible to the user. The error correction greatly improves data reliability of both the memory inside your computer, and the data stored on your hard drives. A backup strategy makes a duplicate of your data on the hard drive so that if something happens to the original, an identical copy can be used to replace the damaged or lost data.
If you use a computer for long enough, eventually you will encounter a situation where you wish you had a backup plan in place. There are many things that can go wrong, and will cause you to loose your data if you don't have a backup. If you have a small business, the absence of such a plan may become catastrophic.

What do I have on my computer that I do not want to risk loosing?

Is your computer the only place you store digital photographs?
Do you use Quicken or Quick books for tracking banking and credit card use?
Do you want to keep old e-mails for future reference?
Do you wish to keep school projects for future reference?
If you have a small business do you want to loose all of your customer records?

Many, probably most home computer users learn the importance of backups the hard way. They loose their data due to accidental erasure, or due to a hard disk failure and then they realize with regret that the information has been lost. The next step they take is to ask how can I prevent this happening again. It is far better to set up a system to back up your data before the first loss occurs.

Here are some reasons why data can be lost:

A hard disk failure can occur
Your computer can be stolen, or lost in a fire or flood or other natural disaster
A virus can wipe out the data on your hard drive, or mangle it so badly that the drive must be re-formatted
You could accidentally format the wrong hard drive
A disgruntled person or a prankster with access to your computer could erase some or all of your files
You could be attacked by a malicious hacker using the Internet who erases or scrambles all your files
You could accidentally erase some critical application file
A program can malfunction due to a bug, or due to operator error

For these reasons and others we have not mentioned, the best cure is the preventative measure of having backups for your data. The operating system and the programs could be re-installed from the original disks, but the data may not be replaceable. For your application data a backup is the best defence against painful or catastrophic data loss.

There are a number of ways to accomplish backups, depending on your situation and the amount of data that could be at risk. The following is an outline of most of the strategies available, listed in order of increasing protection:

Put a copy of each important file onto a USB Flash drive each time that it is changed. You can use Windows Explorer to do the copy.
Use a regular copy of all of the contents of "My Documents" folder and sub folders to a CD-ROM or DVD. Keep all of your data within the "my Documents" folder and its sub folders, so that it gets backed up.
Use Winzip or other compression program to compress and encrypt your data, then write it to a CD-ROM or DVD. This permits more data to be stored on one disk, and it permits keeping it private.
Use "ntbackup.exe", the backup utility supplied with Windows, to do both full and incremental backups to a file, and then and write the file to a CD, DVD. If you have more than one computer on a network, then you can direct the backup to a drive on a different computer.
Install a 2nd hard drive, and use a disk shadowing program to automatically copy all of your data to a 2nd drive. This provides a fast recovery for hard disk failure, but a virus attack or deliberate or accidental erasure will destroy data on the backup as well.
Use ntbackup, and write the backup files to a removable USB hard drive, and store that hard drive in a different building. This can also be a USB Flash drive.
Use a NAS drive (Network Attached Storage), an always on hard drive that has its own IP address and plugs directly into your network, and use ntbackup and task scheduler to do automatic backups to this NAS drive. This eliminates the need to have a 2nd computer, or have it on at the right times. It can be located in a closet or basement, or concealed to make it unlikely to be found by thieves. A few models offer wireless connectivity, and are so even easier to hide.
Use a drive image program to make an identical copy to an external USB hard drive, and store it in a different building in between use. Even better is to have two drives dedicated to the purpose, alternating so one backup is always in a different building. For dial-up Internet users, this is the best strategy.
If you have a high speed Internet, use a network backup service, which in the background automatically sends a backup of important files and folders each time they change to a remote storage facility using the Internet. The transfer uses SSL or other form of encryption, so your data is private and secure when moved over the Internet. Some of these services are free for a small amount of data, and you pay a subscription fee for larger amounts of data. For personal use, and when there are not a lot of digital photographs to backup this may be free and give the best protection. Even if you have to pay a subscription fee, once these are setup up they are completely automatic.

For Windows users, we recommend using the NTFS file system because it permits making a copy of a file that is in use. If you have a FAT file system, you will have issues with automatic backup programs not being able to back up certain files.

Software for Backup

For Windows XP, Microsoft's ntbackup can backup your data even if it stored in scattered folders on your hard drive, or even on multiple drive. It has a bit of a learning curve, as it is a little quirky. It does not do any compression, so the backup file it produces can be quite large. You can use Winzip to compress the backup to reduce the size of the file so that it takes less space, or can fit onto one DVD or CD. Winzip also can output a compressed file in segments so that it it can fit onto multiple CDs or DVDs when it is too large to fit onto one disk. Ntbackup is free, it is a part of windows. Surprisingly it is not automatically installed when you install Windows XP home edition. The task scheduler, found in the control Panel under "scheduled tasks" is built into Windows. This can be used to start a backup session of ntbackup on a regular basis. This is not very user friendly! There are 3rd party tools that are easier to use than ntbackup, some free and some must be purchased. Some brands of external USB hard drives come with software to backup to the external hatrd drive.

Windows Vista has a better backup software built into all versions except for Vista Starter and Windows Vista Home Basic. Assuming you have Home premium or better, there is an improved version which is designed to have very few options, to be user friendly. It can do complete backups that can be transferred onto new hardware, if your computer fails. This capabilty did not exist in Windows XP. To begin, Open Backup and Restore Center by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Backup and Restore Center. Then Click Back up files, and then follow the steps in the wizard. We recommend backing up to an external USB hard drive. Two useful references are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_and_Restore and http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2006/11/06/file-backup-in-windows-vista-faq.aspx .

Windows 7 and later have a much better backup system built in, which is easier to use than Vista's built-in tools! To set up a backup in Windows 7 open up Computer right-click on your local drive and select Properties. Then click on the Tools tab and click the Back up now button. An online detailed guide to the backup software can be found here.

What Kind of Drive is Best to Store My Backups?

The CD-R and DVD-R are both read-only once they have been programmed (burned). This means you have a long term copy of the state of your files that you can keep for years. This has the benefit of retrieving an older version of some data, or something that you accidentally erased a while ago, and did not notice until today. You can take them to another location and leave them there, to gain protection against a fire or other natural disaster, and you don't need to bring them back to do the next backup. The down side of these is that there is an extra step to doing the burning, and sometimes the burning fails and you have to do it again. Also if the amount of data that you backup exceeds the size of one disk, this requires more effort to complete the task.

A hard drive inside a 2nd computer offers a more convenient backup, and more reliable if the 2nd computer is always running. This can be fully automated if both computers are always running at a specific time. The down side to this method is that it provided no protection from fire, theft or other natural disasters, since both computers are at the same location.

A NAS drive which is always on offers a very convenient place to store your backups, and is a good idea if you don't have a 2nd networked computer. It still does not provide protection against fire and natural disasters, since it is co-located with the computer that is being backed up.

A USB external portable hard drive is fast, has a large capacity and is easy to transport. It's large capacity allows you to make a full backup or image of your entire computer, or at least drive C: so that you restore your applications and operating system from it if required. This method would occasionally make a complete image, and on a regular basis make a backup of your user data. The only weakness in this approach is that you need to remember to bring it back from your remote location on the day that you do your backups.

A USB Flash drive is slower than a USB hard drive, but very easy to transport. You could keep it in a purse or briefcase to provide many of the benefits of an off-site location, such as protection against fire and theft. However this is not big enough to store an image of your entire drive C: and it may only hold a few backup sessions before you have to erase an older backup to make room.

A web site or Internet Storage gives you protection against fire and theft and other natural disasters. Professionals make duplicate (redundant) copies of your data so that if one computer or disk drive fails they have a shadow copy to restore your data, and so nothing is lost if a hardware failure occurs. This is not a practical solution if you don't have an always connected high speed connection, but for those that do this can be the most reliable and secure method to do backups. It can be fully automatic so that once setup it operates without any effort on your part.

For the technically more advanced people who own a web site, here is a hint! You can use some of your unused space on your hosting company's web server as a home brew Internet Storage facility. You could even purchase a new hosting plan and use it just for this one purpose, and never get a URL for this domain. A new site may cost you as little as $7 a month, and some US companies are as low as $5 a month. You don't need any premium features, only FTP access and a lot of storage allowance. Then you need to find a backup utility that will use FTP or secure FTP for the transfer, encrypt the files for privacy, and tracking the files that are required to be backed up.

Conclusion

The big problem with backups is remembering to take the steps that make the process work. One that is fully automated is the best approach, since it is the one that is most likely to have your data when you need it. It is easy to forget to do routine tasks. The issue with protection against fire and theft may seem minor most of the time, until this happens. Therefore for many people the Internet Online storage is the best approach even if it does require paying a hopefully small monthly fee for such a service. Otherwise a portable USB Hard drive is best for those without a constant high speed connection, particularly if you regularly go to a friend's house or visit with parents or a sibling on a regular basis. You just make swapping one of two USB drives part of the routine.

There are other considerations, and we can help you decide what is the right fit for your needs.