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Keep your data safe (automatically) for pennies
Keep your data safe (automatically) for pennies
| Keep your data safe (automatically) for pennies |
| Posted By: D-A-L | Date Added: 04-10-2007 02:46 PM | Views: 637 |
Keep your data safe (automatically) for pennies
by Nathan Forrest
Hi! We hope that you enjoyed our recent seven-part series on improving your PC's performance. From now on, we'll be bringing you articles on other topics that we feel could help you in the day-to-day use of your home or small business PC. The articles are written by myself, Nathan Forrest of Future Systems (Sussex). I've been helping out as a moderator on the free computer support forums at www.d-a-l.com since they first opened and I have 15 years' experience of residential and small business IT.
Previous articles that you might also be interested in:
Part 1: Performance status (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/143.html)
Part 2: Clearing out temporary files (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/144.html)
Part 3: Defragmenting your hard disk (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/145.html)
Part 4: Checking your Internet speed (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/146.html)
Part 5: Improving your Internet speed (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/147.html)
Part 6: Backing up and restoring the Windows registry (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/148.html)
Part 7: How to correctly remove unwanted programs (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/149.html)
Keep your data safe (automatically) for pennies
Before we get into the details of this article, let's just do a quick 3-question quiz to verify that you are one of the 99% of computer users that could find this useful.
Do you have a backup of your PC?
If you answered 'No', then give yourself a slap on the wrist! You are, however, in the majority - more than half of all computer users will lose everything when their PC gives in or their hard disk gets corrupted. Note that I didn't say "if", I said "when" - a computer is an electrical device just like your kettle - one day, it will stop working! Be prepared to say goodbye to all of your photos (which you've probably now deleted from your digital camera or phone), all of your downloaded music, all of your emails and all of your friends' contact information. If you're a small business, 50% of you will now go out of business immediately and 90% won't last more than a couple of years.
Do you have a RECENT backup?!
OK, now more of you can go and stand on "the naughty step"! What's the use of having a backup if it's not up-to-date? Most of us would consider our most important information to be the recent files that we have worked on. Recent emails that we haven't yet replied to, school/college coursework or business projects that haven't yet been finished and printed off, a full list of our personal contacts (including new phone numbers and changed email addresses), a recent list of business prospects that we have quoted work for, recent small business accounts or personal tax return information that hasn't yet been verified, etc. We've all recently spent time on our computer making a file of some kind. That would have been a complete waste of our time if it was so futile that we didn't care if we lost it.
Do you have an OFF-SITE backup?
Right, now I know for sure that most of you will answer 'No' to that one! It seems such an unlikely event that our PC and data backups would be stolen or our building would burn down, that most of us haven't even considered giving a CD or DVD of all of our data to a friend or family member elsewhere. But, with that in mind, let me ask you this: How many of you spend at least £10 ($20 USD) every month on buildings and contents insurance for your home or office? Yes, I thought so! Almost all of us think that it's NOT enough of a risk to keep a backup off-site and yet, at the same time, almost of all of us actually DO think it's enough of a worry that we spend money insuring against it! On that subject, the small amount of us that think that we are safe because we've simply "backed up" our data to another folder on the very same PC are probably going a little red in the face!
I really do hope that that has given you something to think about. These articles aren't just an opportunity for me to "brain-dump" a load of information that's fresh in my mind today. If that were the case, I wouldn't spend 3 hours every week thinking how best to word it all. There's now a lot of you out there that are seriously thinking about taking another backup of your system and keeping it safe. That means that there's now a lot fewer of you that are at risk of losing all of your precious data.
So why do so few of us have recent, off-site backups? There's a lot of us out there, particularly in the small business world, who do understand how important a good backup procedure is .... and yet we still don't do it. Please don't misunderstand me: I'm not preaching - I haven't been doing backups as often as I should either. And I can't remember the last time I put one off-site. The reason for me is the same as it is for most of you - it just never seems to be the thing at the top of your 'To Do' list. There's always something easier, more interesting or apparently more important to do. What we could all do with is a backup system that could transfer our data somewhere else with practically no effort and little cost.
Fortunately, such solutions are now available - it's just that most of us haven't realised. They aren't complicated or expensive systems for large enterprises either - they are cheap and easy and are meant for people like us.
Yet again, another technology breakthrough is set to revolutionise the way in which we use our PCs and the Internet. Broadband (DSL) means that we can now be much more productive on the Internet and it costs us less too. Camera phones mean that most of us now have a camera with us all of the time and, as such, we take more digital photos and download them onto our computers. Cheaper hard disks mean that we can now store massive amounts of data at relatively low costs and that has led to many of us backing up our music CDs onto our PCs (and some of us even generate our own MP3 discs to play in the car). And, because more of us have a PC at home or at work, we now communicate with each other as much by email as by telephone.
So, with all of that data on our PCs, it's about time that we had a way of keeping it all safe. CD-Writers and DVD-Writers have been around for a long time and they are now very cheap, as are the discs. But the process of backing up has one weak link - the human that has to run the process! Online storage combines many of the above innovations into a new way of us backing up our data and keeping it off-site - copying our files over our broadband (DSL) connection to massive backup servers somewhere else in the world.
There are now numerous providers of such services. Computer manufacturers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), even telecoms companies. Some of them allow you a certain amount of space on one of their servers and you can transfer your files manually using an FTP program. Some of the services come with the provider's own software to make it easier. Some of them even allow the process to be automated. Some are easier than others. Usually, there is a pricing structure on a tiered scale - the more you want to store, the more it will cost you. Taking Dell as an example, when you buy a PC from their UK web site, you'll have an option to choose their online backup service at roughly £30 ($60 USD) for 10GB of storage space or £45 ($90 USD) for 30GB of storage. Other similar services packages are available from other vendors and almost all work on an annual subscription basis. One such system, in my opinion, stands 'head and shoulders' above the rest.
Carbonite Online Backup is a non-stop, unlimited (subject to fair usage policies), automated online backup system for approximately £25 ($50 USD) per year. Considering the traditional alternatives for a large backup typical of a small business or advanced home user, a 36GB DAT tape backup drive would typically cost around £800 ($1600 USD) to implement, even before you've bought any tapes to store the data on! You would need to install the new physical drive into your PC and then configure some complex backup software. Carbonite Online Backup is unbelievably easy.
I've been in IT for many years and have written lots of technical documentation including software help systems and installation guides. I'm really impressed with how straightforward Carbonite is to install and use, even for non-technical novice users.- The pre-sales information makes it really clear exactly how it works as the Carbonite web site has some fantastic animated videos that explain the whole thing, in easy-to-understand language, in a matter of minutes. As well as English, there are versions in French, German and Japanese (sadly, they haven't added multi-lingual voiceovers to the animations yet but there are illustrated explanations in the other languages). You can view all of the online information and also sign up for a no-charge 15-day trial here: http://www.carbonite.com/aff/default.aspx?img=23&kbid=3499.
- After that, downloading the software is easy - only basic registration details are required - and even that part has just the right amount of assistance to keep everyone happy.
- Once the software is downloaded, it automatically installs and runs the setup wizard. This part couldn't have been done any better. There's basically one question - Do you want to back up the 'Documents And Settings' folder that usually contains your desktop, My Documents, My Pictures, My Music and email folders or have you moved your files somewhere else (you'll know if you have) and want to manually select what to back up?
- Now sit back and relax. When your PC is not busy, Carbonite gets to work encrypting your files and then transporting them safely over your broadband (DSL) connection to Carbonite's secure servers. The first backup does take a long time (several days in most cases) because the initial transfer is for a large amount of data. However, once that has completed, Carbonite runs quietly in the background, monitoring your PC for any new or updated files that need to be added to the backup. It then simply uploads those individual files as and when required.
- Files can be added or removed from the backup at any time and the priority of certain files can be increased if there are a number of files or folders in the queue and one is particularly important.
- When the worst happens and your PC dies (or, alternatively, if you decide to replace your PC with a new one), simply install Carbonite onto another PC, log in to your backup area and download the saved data from the Internet. Because of the way that ADSL broadband downloads data much faster than it uploads data, restoring your backups is a very quick task.
So what's the catch? Well, there are only a few that I can think of and they won't bother most people. Firstly, you need broadband - 56k dial-up or ISDN Internet simply won't be fast enough - and you need to be on a package that allows you to transfer the whole of the initial backup job without going over your limit and getting cut off. For example, if you are on a "1GB capped" service, then transferring a 2GB backup will put you over the limit (you'll actually normally get away with it if you don't make a habit of such activity but it's worth checking first).
Secondly, you'll need Windows XP or Vista, which I should think would apply to most of these online backup services. Lastly, there's no version control (although that will be coming in a future release of Carbonite) so, at present, your data is completely safe from a hard disk failure or PC meltdown but, if you change the contents of a file and don't realise quickly, the revised file will get uploaded fairly swiftly and the original version will be overwritten. If you think that you need version control, then I'm afraid that you're back to looking at one of the traditional methods that you are more likely to forget to do. For such a low cost, we think that it's worth getting your latest backup online with Carbonite anyway.
We think that Carbonite is so brilliant and such good value for money, that we have become a UK reseller for it! If you are in the UK and would like to discuss Carbonite in further detail (including how you might be able to work around the version control issue), get in touch - there's a link to our web site just below this paragraph and there you can find our telephone number and email contact details. Alternatively, anyone who is ready to see it for themselves with a 15-day trial (no credit card details required) can get it from http://www.carbonite.com/aff/default.aspx?img=23&kbid=3499.
Nathan Forrest - Future Systems ( Sussex )
http://www.futuresystems-sussex.co.uk
This article may not be copied or distributed in part or in full from this site and is copyright D24 Media Limited.
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