tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185297525546983459.post1851621051724947122..comments2023-06-14T05:47:28.239-04:00Comments on View from the Bridge: Saving Private FilesCaptain Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04440863300015292162noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185297525546983459.post-19308194855102062442012-01-05T11:00:39.054-05:002012-01-05T11:00:39.054-05:00I just finished revising the second edition of my ...I just finished revising the second edition of my textbook, Information Technology Concepts and Applications, and I wrote quite a lot about this issue. I couldn't agree with you more. <br />People don't even think about where their data is, much less if it is backed up. But people SHOULD think about it, because the question is not IF you lose your data, it is WHEN you lose your data. Everyone always loses some data, some time. <br />New operatingy systems don't make it easy, either. The problems multiply when people switch to Windows 7 and other newer operating systems which have eliminated full-featured backup programs that do incremental and differential backups. (Windows backup now will only do a full and complete). If you are like me and have more than 1 Terabyte of data, you can't do a full a complete backup every night because it takes more than 12 hours to back up that much data. <br /><br />Crashplan sounds like a good option, but there are lots of others as well (I use the backup utility on the external hard drive which serves as my daily backup. For systems at the University, I just created simple xcopy batch file which work suprisingly well). <br /><br />One thing that makes it much easier than in the old days is external hard drives. External hard drives are SO CHEAP! I bought a 1.5 Terabyte hard drive recently for less than $60! (Can you imagine? I paid over $4000 for my first 1 Gigabyte hard drive in 1987.)<br /><br />Now that my book is at the printer, (as of midnight last night) I can do my traditional holiday archive and backup which I do every year. (That is in addition to my daily backup every night, of course.) <br />I make sure ALL my data is on my hard drive. Stuff like email and Google docs that are on the cloud get copied to my hard drive as soon as possible. (I never count on cloud files to be there when I need them - they could get wiped away any time.) <br /><br />Thanks for the wake up call, Joe. Great column. I hope everyone listens to you and follows your advice. <br />CJCJ Rhoadshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17719256582448607138noreply@blogger.com