Saturday, February 28, 2004

Its not if, Its when !

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Most of the important data on a personal computer, is stored on the hard drive. The hard drive is convenient because it is fast, and there is plenty of storage room. With all its' convenience, the hard drive has one fatal flaw. Eventually, the hard drive will fail (and most likely take your favorite and important data with it). Sometimes hard drives fail slowly, over time, which gives you plenty of time to offload that important data. Most times when the hard drive fails, it's in an instant. One second all your valuable data is there, the next second it's gone. Of course, you can send the failed drive off to a Data Recovery company, which is very costly to you - upwards of several hundred dollars - and in some instances, the data still can't be recovered.
When your system is in warranty, and you happen to experience a hard drive failure, the hard drive will most likely be replaced. Unfortunately, the data will not. Your personal data is your responsibility. The wrong time to think about starting a backup solution is after a failure occurs, when it's too late.
A popular saying in the computer industry is: There are two kinds of hard drives - hard drives that have already failed, and hard drives that will fail.
What causes a hard drive to fail?
1. Age - hard drives just grow old and die. It's inescapable.
2. Power failures and power spikes. Most of the time, your hard drive survives these with flying colors, other times?
3. Viruses can make your hard drive unreadable, or they can corrupt the data so it is unusable. Installing good virus protection is a must but isn?t a guaranteed solution against viruses.
4. Physical damage. If you drop a hard drive (or the computer it is installed in) you can render the hard drive inoperable. Sometimes just sliding the system across the desk while the system is on can cause severe hard drive problems.
5. Defects in the hard drive - as with anything, hardware failures happen.
So what can I do to protect my data?
The best thing you can do is back up your data. A backup means that you have a copy of your important data, on some other storage media, that would be available in the event something catastrophic happened to the original data. A backup that is stored off the hard drive (or even off site - in case there's a fire) is the way to go. Here are some thoughts on the methods that can be used to back up data:
1. Floppy Disk - Removable storage. This is not a suggested form of backup as floppy media is fairly unreliable. It would also be costly and time consuming, considering how much data is stored on today's hard drives. Floppy disks should be used for temporary storage, or to move something small from one machine to another.
2. Tape Drive - Removable storage. Tape drives can have very large capacities (and very large price tags). Tape drives are used mainly by businesses today. You can even buy tape drives that automatically feed many tapes so an unattended backup of an entire network in the middle of the night is possible. This convenience will ensure that backups are created frequently (the more frequent, the less data that is lost in the event of a failure).
3. Using a second hard drive - Fixed storage. This is a viable backup method. It's quick, but it's still rather costly. This may become a more economical solution if used on a network where many people can save their important backup data to the same shared drive. Without putting the hard drive into a removable bracket (and being very careful with the removed drive), it would be inconvenient to keep this type of backup off premises.
4. Zip and Jaz disks. - Removable storage. These Iomega products have more reasonable drive costs although the media is still a little pricey. The disks have a somewhat large storage capacity (especially the Zip 250 or the Jaz 2GB), and the data is saved rather quickly, so backups will probably be made more frequently, which is good practice. Can easily be taken off premises.
5. CD-R/CD-RW. - Removable storage. This is probably the most cost effective method for backing up data . It's fairly fast (and getting faster all the time) and the blank media is very reasonable. You can store 650MB of data on a single CD-R or CD-RW disk, and the disk will be readable in pretty much any computer that has an optical drive. The disks are (if you use jewel cases) very robust so you can be confident your data will be available if you should ever need it. The disks can easily be taken off premises.
6. Online Storage. - This is a very new industry that has emerged since broadband access to the Internet has become more widespread. This system allows you to copy your important data over an internet connection to a web server. You will need to pay for this service, generally on a monthly basis. Since this method fulfills two of the main backup requirements - a copy off your hard drive, and it's also off the premises - it's a very secure method. Be sure to research the company you choose for this service before committing your important data to them. Make certain you know about all costs involved and what recovery methods are available to you.
What data do I back up?
This answer varies from person to person. Ask the question: If someone came during the night and stole my computer, what data would I miss?
· The Favorites folder where you store your favorite Internet sites?
· Documents in your 'My Documents' folder?
· Pictures from your digital camera or received from family and friends?
· Email addresses of your friends and family?
· Old email?
· Characters from that game you've been playing for the last 3 months?
· Music files?
· Work from your business?

You should give some thought to the value of your data, before a hard drive failure causes you to think about what you lost forever.