Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Backup - what is it good for?



I get customers all the time that have lost some or all of their pictures due to a "dead computer". "Dead computer" usually mean a crashed disk. A crashed disk means that you've probably lost all of your pictures.

If you come into my store with a crashed disk, I'll probably recommend you to start taking backups of your pictures. But, seeing that you now don't have any pictures left, it's a bit too late. So why not start with the backup-process before the s**t hits the fan?

What you need.
At least an extra HDD (aka disk or hard drive). Even if you in Windows Explorer (or its equal in the Mac-world whatever that is) see several "disks", it's not sure that you have two physical disks in your machine. To survive a disk-crash, the data need to be on a different disk.

If you have a workstation and some mad geek-skills, you can install an extra HDD yourself, e.g. something like this: Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Green SATA. Plenty of space to keep your pictures safe.
But you probably don't have a workstation or mad geek-skills, you probably didn't understand anything in the paragraph above. What you want is an external HDD, e.g. something like this: Western Digital My Book Essential 2 TB USB 2.0. There are plenty of different disks to choose from, and I recommended these because I've always used Western Digital.




What to do
OK, so you got the extra disk. Now, let the fun begin!
The most important thing about a backup solution is that it's automated. If it's not, you'll forget to do backups, and it's worth less than s**t.
I personally use Microsoft SyncToy 2.1 for my backups. It's one of the best piece of software to ever come from Microsoft, and it's free. Yes, I know. It's not often you see the words Microsoft, best and free in the same sentence. And since I'm lazy as hell, check out this tutorial on how to use SyncToy.




Now what? Are my pictures safe?
Well, no.
The level of backup addresses the issues of fire and thieft. If your house burns down, you lose all your pictures.What you need to do, is to store a backup outside of your home. At work or online are the most common.

The "at work" solution is better than nothing, but since it's not automated, it's not the best solution. Keep an extra backup somewhere outside your home, and you're safer.

The best solution for off-site backup (just a fancy name for getting your stuff outside your home), is the internets. The internets are huge, and they have room for all of your pictures. I personally use Jungledisk, which is a front-end for Amazons S3 storage cloud. I know, now I'm just showing off with the fancy words. In short, JungelDisk is a small piece of software that uploads your pictures to the internets. It's not free, not expensive, an totally worth it. The only drawback is that it can take quite some time to upload all your pictures due to slow bandwith. Check it out, and fall in love!



OK. Is it safe now?!?
Yes.

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