Tips for saving your data

I recently dealt with a system crash that took a lot of data with it. Here are a few things I did afterward so I'll have an easier time of it the next time this happens. Backup Backup Backup. I can't say this enough. Backup your data to another hard drive, optical media (dvd or bluray) or both another hard drive and optical media. I was in Walmart a few days ago and saw a 500GB USB external hard drive for $59. You can get a spindle of 100 DVDs for around $30. There are the online backup services such as Carbonite and Mozy. Backing up your stuff will certainly be a whole lot less hassle than loosing the data and having to spend days, weeks or longer finding replacement copies online and downloading them all over again. Then there are mobile racks for hard drives. The first part is installed in your computer in one of the spaces where you might put a DVD drive. This part is connected to the computer just like a hard drive would be. A hard drive is placed in an enclosure that is plugged into the part that's installed in the computer. This makes the hard drive or drives easy to remove and ideal for backups of large amounts of data. Depending on your computer's operating system and hardware, you may be able to insert and remove hard drives on the fly. Otherwise you have to shut down the computer before inserting or removing a hard drive.

Here are the google results for mobile rack. Included are pictures of several and links to places that sell them.  You might have seen these on computers at offices or schools.  It looks like a whole about three inches wide with a little flap that acts as a door.

Each backup option has advantages over others.  Backing up to hard drives takes up less space than burning the data to dvd.  DVDs are immune to damage from magnetic fields.  If your kid puts his toy magnet on top of your backup hard drive, consider the data on it hosed.  DVDs are way more likely to survive a fall off a shelf.  If your cat starts walking on a shelf and knocks the hard drive to the floor, it's may very well be ruined.  A dvd is less likely to be damaged from a similar fall. It will be ok as long as it's not scratched.

Both of these are history if your house burns down or destroyed in a flood , tornado or earthquake.  This is where one of the online backup services can save your bacon.  The backed up data is not at your  home. Once you're settled, you can go online with your new computer and download the data from the backup service's site.  Some may offer a service where they put your backup on as many DVDs as needed and ship them to you.  Depending on the amount of data backed up, this option could very well be faster than downloading the data.  If privacy is a concern, the online backup services encrypt the data before it leaves your computer.  If you don't want to rely only on their encyption, you can encrypt the data yourself before handing it over to them.

If you want the added protection of an offsite backup, but don't want to deal with an online backup service, there is another option.  Take the hard drives or optical discs to another location.  A safe deposit box at a bank is ideal for this.  Also the vaults these are in are built to resist fires, tornadoes, etc.

More changes in future as I have the time and desire to work on this.

bye now