How Should I Back-up?

There are lots of ways to back-up your computer. ShadowBack, for instance, is a software based solution. It copies and preserves all of the important files on your computer. Then, while you work, it copies and preserves all of the important files that you've changed as well. These files are stored until you need them, protecting you from data loss.

A better question might be, "Where will my backups go?" ShadowBack supports backing up your drive to any other drive, including the same drive. While this provides some level of protection, it's better for backups to be in a separate place from the original data. This could be another hard drive dedicated to backup files, or one could use removable media, such as writable DVD or CDs, tapes, zip disks or removable drives. Personally, I use an extra IDE hard drive to back-up my whole computer continuously. I also use DAT tapes for monthly backups, plus DVDs for more frequent backups of important files. I also keep a number of the tapes and DVDs stored off-site in case of fire or theft at my office. I do all of this because the data on my computer is my entire professional life; without it, I'm out of business and have lost quite a number of years of my work. So ask yourself: how much is your data worth to you? How much of it could you replace if one day it were to all disappear?

The type of backup you choose may be determined by the hardware that is already attached to the computer. If the only backup device available is a CD burner, then perhaps backing up only one's unique data (and not program files that are available from installation CDs) is the best way to go. A DVD burner will use fewer discs to back-up a whole computer, but depending on the size of your drive, it may still take far too many. DAT and Travan tape drives can store lots of stuff to only a few tapes, but the tapes are expensive (especially Travan tapes). With any of these devices, it might be best to only periodically run full backups, but back-up your unique data more often. Backing up to an extra hard drive allows the user to fully back-up everything on their computer quickly and efficiently. However, hard drives are vulnerable to shock and damage, and aren't good for long term archiving (more than 5 or 10 years). We recommend a combination of the aforementioned techniques: use a hard drive for fast daily backups, and back-up your work to some kind of removable media that you can store away from the computer. Then, depending on how important the data is, keep some backups off site as well.