Backup Megabytes, Gigabytes or Terabytes

Backing up can be simple. It's a matter of timely management. It's best to back up day to day working files daily, and then keep an additional volume of archives.

The risks are imminent!
Computers fail often. It's a given. Thousands of tiny programs, many working simultaneously gives way to any number of risks to fail. So the strategy becomes more like: How quickly can you restore from an imminent failure of any kind?

Here's my favourite strategy in step form:

1. Keep a single folder of all your daily working files. This includes the email client file. (In MS Outlook it's a *.pst file). Backup this folder to a second hard drive daily.

If possible - run a second computer. I run a desktop PC with my notebook networked. The desktop runs like a work station. I store all my daily files on the notebook. Backing up the notebook daily either back to the work station or on an external hard drive connected via USB.
The biggest advantage of running parallel computers is that when either computer fails or hangs, I can immediately switch to the other. The desktop and notebook do not have to be particularly expensive computers. You can buy either for less than the price of a larger backup drive these days, and when you get up to speed with using two computers, you get the advantage of multitasking roles between the two machines.

2. When your daily working folder starts to reach the size of a DVD - about 4.5 gigabytes - transfer the entire folder to a blank DVD. As an extra measure, you can copy this DVD and keep it in a safe place at another location. So you always have a complete backup.

3. Once archived and on your primary daily folder storage - delete all but the files you use daily. You can easily retrieve any file from the archived volume on the DVD.

4. Start the process again. Eventually you have a collection of volumes on DVD's.

What are the advantages of this procedure?

Cost is minimised; Data is always safe and available should there be any losses; computer operation is optimised because you don't need to handle huge file volumes; you can keep your older computer much longer, even five years, rather than having to update to larger and faster models every two years or so because your one to two year old machine is now 'full'.

...and what are megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes?

File sizes are measured in bytes: a kilobyte is 1000 bytes (approximately the size of a MS Word file with one or two lines of text in it; megabyte is 1 thousand kilobytes; a gigabyte is one thousand megabytes; and a terabyte is one thousand gigabytes. Which is around a thousand million MS Word files with one or two lines of text!