You might think that I’m going to discuss one’s ability to get a 53′ trailer backed around a beautiful fence, two environmentally protected trees, one poorly planned pole, two other trucks, and squarely into a dock door. You might be wrong. No, I’m about to discuss the importance of backing up your Operating System, program applications, and data. Please, don’t tune me out; this is important stuff and I’ll be brief. Well, as brief as I ever get.

Why you absolutely, positively, must implement a back up strategy

An interesting study regarding the frequency of hard disk drive failures was recently released by Google and it caused a good deal of concern among folks whose computers never venture from their cubicle. You, my friends, you who lug laptops from border to border and sea to shining sea, should be highly concerned. If hard drives resting comfortably in cubicles are failing at much higher rates than expected then you can bet that hard drives being bounced down the highway, or dropped from Freightliners, have an even shorter life expectancy.

Now, a hard disk drive is a relatively inexpensive piece of hardware but the total cost of replacing one that fails unexpectedly can be quite high; not to mention time consuming. That’s because, unless you’re performing full backups, a sudden hard drive failure means you’re going to have to reinstall and reconfigure your Operating System and all the applications you had on the failed drive. Further, if you haven’t performed any backups, you will have forever lost all the data stored on your drive.

I’m sure that nearly all of you have an Operating System re-installation disk, and you probably have the installation CDs for some or even all of your program applications, but you might not be carrying them around with you in the truck and, even if you are; what about all the programs you’ve downloaded? And what about all your files and data? I know I wouldn’t want to lose the several hundred music files I’ve bought at a buck a pop and I’m sure you wouldn’t either. If you’ve recently completed a full backup, though, you can recover from something as simple as a software glitch to something as catastrophic as a complete hard drive failure; with minimal cost and effort.

There are three components to a backup strategy: software, physical storage and, finally, online storage. Let’s take a look, first, at the software.

Backup Software

When it comes to backup software you might find yourself unable to choose between a “traditional” backup solution and an “imaging” backup solution. Here’s the difference:

  • Traditional Backup: You might also see this type of backup software referred to as “file-based backup”. These applications read and write data at the file level and they’re the old guard; having existed for many years. Some of these utilities can incrementally backup open files, and some support disaster recovery; restoring both the system and data.
  • Imaging Backup: These applications create an exact duplicate image of a laptop hard drive; making disaster recovery a snap. Some of these utilities, including the ones I recommend, have begun to cross over into “traditional backup” territory by including the ability to back up individual files and folders as well as perform incremental backups.

You might find yourself drawn, for whatever reason, to either traditional or imaging backup utilities but, whichever you choose, I urge you to be certain that it include the ability to perform disaster recovery.

Here are a couple of my favorites in each category:

  • Roxio Backup MyPc: The current version is Backup MyPc 2006 but I understand that a new version is scheduled for release.
  • NovaStor NovaBackup: According to their website NovaBackup “gathers all the necessary information to completely restore a computer (bare metal restore) and creates a Disaster Recovery CD that can be used to boot an unresponsive system. It will locate your previous backup, and restore the operating system, applications, and all computer settings.”
  • Acronis True Image: Acronis has just released True Image 11 and, according to this review, its one of the best backup utilities currently available. One important feature: if you opt for the more expensive Workstation version ($79) you can also purchase the Universal Restore module ($29) that’ll restore images to a laptop not having the same hardware profile as the laptop the image was created on. That’s an important consideration.
  • DriveImage XML: What can I say - its the least expensive drive-imaging utility available - its free. Yeah, not a lot of bells and whistles but I usually find that in feature rich products I don’t often ring all the bells or blow all the whistles anyway. If you happen to have a traditional backup solution that lacks a disaster recovery feature then you could certainly augment it with DriveImage XML.

Backup Hardware

There are several types of hardware that can be used to create file, full system, and imaging backups. Personally, I don’t really like using DVDs or CDs as backup media - but thats just me and there are certainly instances in which these are the best of all possible choices. For example, you might have to create a Disaster Recovery CD.

Most backup utilities support a wide array of storage options but I’ve opted for an external drive. I happen to use the Toshiba 100GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive but there are any number of choices from manufacturers like, for example, Seagate. (I’d have included Maxtor but, since Seagate recently acquired Maxtor, one click now gets you both.) These external drives generally include a backup utility but the included utility will rarely have the ability to produce a Disaster Recovery CD. For this reason I also use a separate backup utility.

You should also know that, in addition to CDs and DVDs, you could also use a flash drive of some kind. These are great for performing backups that are limited to text, music or video files but their capacity is somewhat limited and the per gigabyte cost is very high; the Corsair Voyager series offers models up to 32GB but the best price I’ve seen for that one is $389! That’s more than $12 per gigabyte; compared to $.89 per gigabyte for my Toshiba external drive.

Of course, external drives have issues, they’re more bulky and, since they’ve got moving parts, they, too, can fail. Considering their value, though, they’re going to remain my backup storage location for some time to come.

Online Storage

There’s no way I’d recommend using online storage as your only, or even primary, backup choice but it has its place in an overall backup strategy. Why, you may ask? Well, consider the possibility that some catastrophic event occurs and you lose not only your laptop but your external drive, as well. No, its not likely but trucks do catch fire and get broken into on occasion.

If you’ve got your most important files stored on someone else’s server then, at the very least, you’ll be able to recover them in case you’ve experienced a sudden and catastrophic loss. I’ve only just recently begun to use online storage and the types of files I have stored include: All my music, all files related to my web site and blog, a bunch of photos and a few financial records. You might also consider maintaining backups for files generated by programs like Drivers Daily Log or Nautilus InCab, as well.

There are quite a few options available for online storage and some of them are prohibitively expensive. Because I don’t need or really want to back up my entire hard drive using an online service I’ve chosen to use one that’s free; and there are a surprising number of them. Here’s a few:

  • Mozy Online Backup: The standard “Home” package costs $4.95 per month (for unlimited backup) but you can get a free account that allows you to backup 2GB. Here’s the link to Mozy.
  • IDrive-E: IDrive-E offers 2GB of free online backup space without any backup and restore restrictions, bandwidth limits, or file type restrictions.
  • Xdrive: Offering 5GB of free storage space, Xdrive is an AOL company that’s very easy to use.

Most online backup services, whether free or paid, offer some kind of file sharing so you can make photos and such available to friends and family. Its also a good way to make certain documents available to a limited number of individuals without emailing it each and every time its updated.

If you find you need more online storage than available with the free services you can always opt for their paid plans but, in that case, you might also want to take a look at another service: Carbonite. For $49.95 per year you can get unlimited storage space and their client performs incremental updates whenever you’re connected to the web.

Conclusion

I just can’t stress this point enough; if you carry a laptop around with you then creating and maintaining a complete backup strategy is of the highest priority. We just can’t “hope for the best” when we’re doing more and more business online.