BACKUPS
Backups are about human error and machine error. People can do things wrong, machines can break. Both are bad when it affects what you do. So what can you do about it? This is where good backups come in. But what kind of backups do you want or need? I will attempt to give you a nice overview of what is available for you. You have to decide what you need, but it's nice to know what all the options are.
What will be discussed here are the following areas:
- Backup types
- Where to backup to
- How often to backup
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Types of Backups
Backups come in a variety of 'flavours' for lack of a better word
- Hot
- Cold
- Full
- Incremental
- Datafile
- System
- Image
- Hot
Some programs, most notably databases, actually do backups while the program is running. This is referred to as a hot backup. The program is running and generating backup files that you save in case you need to do a recovery.
Cold
Cold backups are the opposite. The program is stopped and you are taking a copy of the datafiles while everything is in a static state - nothing is changing. This is normal state of affairs for most backups.
Full
Full backups have to do with a group of files, such as all your word processing files. This is where you take a backup of everything that exists in that directory at a given time, like maybe Sunday night. And then next Sunday night you take another full backup of all the same files, whether they have changed or not, they are all backed up.
Incremental
An incremental backup is a variation of the full backup. In this case you do a full backup on, say, the first of every month. Then during the month you do just backups of the files that have changed since that full backup at the beginning of the month. The following month, on the first, you once again do a full backup and start the procedure all over.
Differences between Full and Incremental
What is the advantage of full backup and of the incremental backup? Each has its benefits and costs.
For the full backup you know that you have all the file, all the time.
The downside is that it is going to take you longer to backup all your files all the time compared to an incremental backups. And it uses up more storage.
For the incremental backup you are going to have all your files, but if you backup onto tape, then they might be split up over a couple of tapes which means that if you have to restore any of them, you might have to spend just a little longer retrieving them. But incremental backups are very cost-efficient for storage, they take up a minimum amount of space.
Datafile vs. System Backups
Now, what are you going to backup comes into play, the system files or just the datafiles that you are changing, like your word processing files?
Minimally you need to backup your working files. This is all the work that you have been sweating over, you don't want to lose that. The system files can always be recreated by reinstalling your operating system (if it came to that) and reinstalling all your programs.
So why backup your system files then? Because of all those cute little preferences that you have created along the way to having the system 'just' the way you like it. Those little keyboard shortcuts, the right fonts, the right colours, that kind of stuff. And speed. To reinstall your operating system and get all your programs reinstalled on your computer is going to take someone good at least 3-4 hours depending on how many programs they have to install and how many times they have done it before. Myself, I can redo my entire system in about 4 hours, which means installing 40 programs including my major installation of an Oracle database software which is an hour and half to complete. And then I have to reset all my preferences, being picky like I am.
With a full backup of my system, I can have myself functioning again in 30 minutes. And during that time I am drinking coffee in the kitchen or watching TV -- nothing related to computers. It's way more relaxing. A program does it for me.
Speaking of full backups, of your operating system, program files and datafiles comes one last topic - file backups or image backups.
File Backups
If you are using Microsoft's supplied Backup tool supplied with Windows, you are making file backups. The program goes through and copies each file that it finds to your backup destination, whether it is tape, another hard drive, CD or another computer. Unfortunately if a file is being used by the system, such as the operating system files that are needed for Windows to operate, these files do not seem to be consistently backed up by Windows , so what happens is that if you need to do a recovery and can't get Windows to load properly, you are going to have to reinstall Windows from your CD's and then once all that is done, you will have to use your backups files in recovery mode.
Image Backups
An image backup, as compared to a file backup is done at the disk level. It does not look at what it is copying (files) but is actually doing a bit-by-bit copy of your hard drive, regardless of what is occupying that particular bit of data. With an image copy you have to copy an entire drive (C: or D: ...). With a file backup you are generally backing up either drives, or directories, but you are working with a file structure then, images don't.
There are many programs that exist in the marketplace that will create what is called an image of your hard drive. Norton Ghost, PowerQuest's DriveImage and Acronis TrueImage are three products that I can recommend. Norton and Quest both require you to exit from Windows and reboot off a floppy (or CD) for the backup. For the money, I use TrueImage myself as it seems to be almost bullet-proof from my testing, idiot proof (works for me) and more importantly, I can stay in Windows to do it, I can even work while it works for me! There, that's my 25 cent plug for a company that doesn't even pay for referrals (sigh).
So the downside of an image backup is that it is going to take longer because you can't do incremental backups with it, you either backup the drive or you don't. And you have to backup the ENTIRE drive, so that guarantees that it is going to take longer. And that is going to take a chunk of storage to keep. Fortunately, most of the programs also offer compression that can take a 10 gig drive and compress it down to almost half of its orignal size.
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Where to Backup to
Never backup Drive C: to drive C:. It just doesn't work out. The general rule of thumb is NOT to backup to the same hard drive that you are backing up. What this means is that if you have a typical computer that only has one physical hard drive inside the computer, it will often be broken up into two or more logical drives, typically C:, D: and so on. These drives still all reside on the same physical hard drive in your computer. So if your hard drive crashes, as compared to just one drive being unreadable, you have lost your physical hard drive and the backups that were supposed to protect you.
This is why I always recommend a second hard drive in your computer, a tape backup or a network connection to another computer that you can backup to. Depending on your circumstances, the best alternatives are listed below (worst first):
Computer with one logical drive (C:)
no backups, lots of prayer
Computer with one logical drive (C:)
backup your datafiles to a CD, preferably a rewritable one so you can reuse the disks
Computer with a tape backup
backup your files to the backup tape
Computer with two logical drives (C: & D:)
backup your datafiles to a rewritable CD
backup your C: drive to the D: drive
backup your D: drive to your C: drive
Computer with a network connection to another computer
backup your files to an available spot on the other computer
do the same with the other computer, having it backup onto your computer
Computer with two physical drives
(drive 1 has drive C: and maybe D:)
(drive 2 has drive E:)
backup your C: and D: drives to E:
E: is the backup drive so it doesn't need to be backed up to anything else
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How often to backup
How long you go between backups is your choice depending on how much your information changes and how paranoid you are. If you use your computer every couple of days, and it mostly just for playing games or hunting around on the Internet, the other email or letter, once a month might be a good thing for you.
If you are regularly working on your computer, I would minimally suggest once a week. That way if you lose some information, the most you are out is whatever work you did in the last week since the last backup. At most you are out seven days.
If you use it a lot, set something up that will allow you to do daily backups. It is possible to set up a backup program that will run automatically for you at a time that is convenient for you. So, set up a schedule where it will automatically do backups for you at the end of the day, maybe at 11:00 p.m. each evening.
Myself, I do incremental backups of my files during the week and an image backup on the weekend. Again, these all work at night so it doesn't impact me. The computer should not determine when you work.
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