Michael Torrie's Personal Wiki

Back Up That Computer!

These days most people have computers full of precious memories in the form of pictures, video, and other documents. Digital photography makes it extremely cheap to take a picture, but printing and putting it in a photo album, as we used to do, is too expensive because of the sheer volume of pictures accumulated these days. So in most cases, these important pictures and other files exist only on a person’s computer. Unfortunately computer storage devices are prone to failure, particularly hard disk drives which rely on a spinning platter to store the information. If something fails mechanically, or a software glitch causes files to be irreversibly corrupted, these priceless files can be lost forever.

Department of Redundancy Department

The number one principle in preserving computer data is redundancy. Simply put, the more copies of a document you have, the lower the chance of permanently losing it. But this does not mean multiple copies on a single disk or computer. Redundancy means storing copies of important files in physically different places. Another disk, another computer, attached to an e-mail sent to yourself, printed out, or stored in the “cloud.” Or all of these!

Where to Back up to?

Your first line of defense against losing data is to have a copy of all important files stored on a disk that is external to your computer. Secondary back-up destinations can also include other computers you own, or commercial “cloud” services. Having more than one external backup disk and method (such as the “cloud”) is a good strategy.

External Disks

External disks are spinning hard disks in a little plastic case that attach to the computer via a USB cable. They can be purchased in storage capacities equal to or greater than your computer’s internal disk, depending on your needs. There are generally two physical sizes (dimensions), which represent the physical size of the drive within the enclosure: 2.5” and 3.5”. Sometimes sites call these “Portable” and “Desktop,” respectively. New solid-state drives are becoming available and they are physically smaller, though more expensive.

For larger storage needs, over 1 TB, external drives are often 3.5”. These drives require a power cord to be plugged in, as well as the USB cable to your computer. These drives cost between $100 for 1 TB to $150 for 3 TB (prices in CAD, as of November 10, 2012). Consider that most home computers have between 0.5 TB (500 GB) to 1 TB drives in them usually.

Other external drives are 2.5” and can be purchased in storage sizes up to 1 TB. These do not require a power cable to be plugged in; they plug in with the USB cable only and get power from your computer through that cable. Some of them have a cable with two USB ends on them. If the drive does not work with only one end plugged in, plug the other one in as well (one cable that plugs into two USB ports). 2.5” hard drives cost between $50 for 0.5 TB to $100 for 1 TB.

For simplicity and convenience, I recommend the 2.5”, or “Portable” external hard drives. The storage capacities they offer are sufficient for most people’s needs, they are reasonably priced, and need no extra power cord.

When you buy an external hard drive for use with Macintosh computers, do not worry about buying a drive specifically for Mac OS. Any USB external hard drive will work. After purchasing it, you will want to use a program called “Disk Manager” (in the Utilities folder in your Applications) to re-initialize the drive to use the Macintosh format, “Mac OS Extended (Journaled),” and give it a useful name. Most of the time I recommend that an external disk be unplugged and powered off when not in use. There are exceptions to this, which I will detail later in the section on backup software and also Time Machine.

You can buy external drives at big-box stores, such as Future Shop or Best Buy, and also from Wal-Mart, Costco, and most other stores that have electronics and computers for sale.

As well, you can buy from an online retailer. Here are a few links:

  • NewEgg.ca. Click on 2.5” on the left side of the page to see the portable drives.
  • Amazon.ca. If link does not work, go to amazon.ca, and go to the “Electronics,” “Computers & Accessories,” “Memory Cards & External Storage,” “External Hard Drives,” “Portable” category. Or just search for “Portable External Hard Drive.”
  • Ca.Buy.com. Search for 2.5” external hard drive. Buy.com's web site is very hard to search compared to the others.

External hard disk drives are similar to what is already in your computer. They typically spin, and so they can fail mechanically. Even solid-state disks, which are becoming popular, can physically fail. For this reason, you may want to consider two external disks and alternate between them when backing up your files. And every couple of years consider replacing the oldest drive with a brand new one.

You might also want to store one disk at a different location from where your computer is located. For example, at another’s home, or at work in your office drawer. In the case of a fire, theft, or another disaster, your photos may be as important to you as your legal and financial documents. But at the very least have one external disk at all times that your important files are on.

Another Computer

If you have two computers in a house, you can copy important files from one computer to the other. This can be done over a network, for example, through your wireless network, or by some other means. There are software packages which will continuously back files up between computers over a network connection (wireless or with a network ethernet wire). I will talk about this software more below.

Optical Media

Before the advent of digital photography, files were smaller and many people considered optical media, such as writable CDs, or DVDs, as viable backup medium. Besides being small by today’s standard, be aware that optical media does degrade over time, and the format used on the disc itself may not be readable to newer computers years from now. In fact newer computers might not even have an optical drive.

If you plan to use DVDs, I recommend writing a new set of DVDs every year (tossing out the old ones) and testing to make sure the discs are readable on another computer. Then store in a dry place. Most people have too many large files (pictures and video) to store on a DVD, or even dozens of DVDs!

USB Memory Sticks

USB memory sticks are solid state storage devices, but are mostly too small to be of any real use in backups. They can store several gigabytes of information, so they do have their uses. However they are not reliable, and have a high failure rate. Use them mainly as means of transferring files temporarily, or as a secondary (not primary) form of backup. Storing an important document on a USB stick is generally not considered to be as safe a backup as a full external disk, or the “cloud.”

The “Cloud”

Many companies offer commercials services that will store your data on their computers somewhere in the world. These are very large computers with thousands of disks that are configured in a redundant way so that physical disk failure in their system is less likely to lose your data. This is often colloquially referred to as the “cloud.”

Most “cloud” back up services offer software that continuously backs your computer up to their disks, so there is no periodic process you have to run. As you copy pictures off your camera, they are automatically sent to the back-up service, typically.

Privacy is often a concern when you send your data off into the Internet. Most services will ask you to set up a password that is used to encrypt the data to provide at least some measure of privacy. Do not lose this password as it is impossible to get your data back if you forget it. The back-up service companies cannot retrieve your password for you if the password was used in any way to encrypt your data on their disks.

These cloud services could still fail despite their attempts at redundancy, and you could lose your data stored in them, or lose access to your data. However the chances of that happening are much, much, less than your own computer failing. So when used in conjunction with external disks, they provide an added layer of safety that, though usually at a cost, is affordable. Free cloud services work too if your needs are not too great in terms of storage space (just a few gigabytes). Also you can use more than one service to get an added layer of redundancy as well.

Personally I prefer to have my own external disk back-ups as well as these cloud services, but if you only wish to do one or the other, the cloud services just might be appealing to you.

How to determine how much data you have

First you should determine how much total space you are using on your computer. To do this in Windows, you need to open the “My Computer” window, select your C: drive (and you can do this to the other drives as well) and select “Properties.” This will give you a handy pie chart of your total disk usage. You probably need a backup disk that is about that size. If you really want to find out where all your space has gone, use a free program such as WinDirStat (http://windirstat.info) to graphically show you were your space is going.

On a Mac, right-click (or Control-click) the main computer icon (often “Macintosh HD”) and click “Get Info.” This should report disk usage. A MacOS program for finding out where your space is going is the free utility, DiskInventoryX (http://www.derlien.com/) .

Just to get an idea of storage space required by different types of files, here are some average sizes. Typically, one photo file is up to 4 megabytes in size, depending on photo quality. Music files are usually about 5 – 6 megabytes in size. This means that at higher qualities, 1 gigabyte (GB) is about 250 photos. Or for music, about 200 songs. Documents created in a word processor or spreadsheet are quite a bit smaller. Video files can be huge.

What Should I Back Up?

Usually it is not necessary to make a backup of absolutely everything on your computer. Really only your own personal documents need to copied to another place–things such as word processing documents, spreadsheets, school work, accounting information, digital music files, photos, videos, and other things you have created. On most computer systems these files are more or less contained in one place, called the “home directory.” For simplicity’s sake, I recommend you just back everything up in these folders, unless you have reason to do otherwise.

Microsoft Windows

Unless you have an Apple computer, you are most likely running some form of Microsoft Windows. Since Windows XP, all user data is stored in individual “home directories.” On Windows XP, all of these folders are usually on your C: drive, in a folder called “Documents and Settings.” On Windows Vista, 7, or 8, these folders are on the C: drive, in a folder called “Users.”

If you have stored files in folders on the C: drive outside of the home directories, you’ll want to back those up as well, and also any folders on drives other than C: (excluding the external drive which also will have a letter assigned to it).

Apple Macintosh

On Apple Macintosh machines purchased in the last 10 years or so, almost all files will be stored on the main drive (often called “Macintosh HD”), in a folder called Users. If you have created any folders in the root of the main hard drive, you may want to back those up as well, and also any files and folders on other hard drives if you have any.

How often should I backup my files?

When you back up your files depends on how often you add new photos or documents. If you have important files that you are working on daily, you may want to backup daily. If photos are mainly what you keep on your computer and what are the most important to you, you may want to back up every time you bring in photos from your camera. If you have more than one external disk, you can back up to both, or rotate between them. Whatever works for you.

How to back up my files

Manually

Backing up the files can be done manually, just by using the file browser on your computer. For example you could simply drag the folders you need to back up to the external drive. On Windows you would use Explorer. On Mac, Finder. If you only need to backup periodically, this might work for you.

Backup Software

If you backup more frequently, this is not optimal, as you don’t need or want to backup files that are already backed up. Only things that have changed need to be backed up. There are several software packages that can assist in this. I will mention a few of them here, almost all of which are free to download and use (no cost). I have not personally used any of these applications so far (but I will try some of them!), and there are many many others out there. I welcome any suggestions (free or cost) of software that people like.

These software packages are not cloud backup services. They are designed to be used to copy (backup) files to an external disk, or a file server that you own or have access too. There is some overlap with the specific “cloud” backup software I mention below, but “cloud” solutions come with their own software that you will use with them, in addition to perhaps using one of these software solutions for your local backups.

Microsoft Windows:

Apple Macintosh

A Word About Apple’s Time Machine

Time Machine is a very nice piece of software that many people use as part of their backup strategy. Time Machine makes a full backup of your computer to an external drive, and then every hour synchronizes it any changes that you have made to the backup disk. But Time Machine also keeps old versions of the files, which is very handy. This means that if you make changes to a document, or even a photo, or delete it, you can look back in time, as it were, to older versions and recover from them if you need to. Think of this as an archival function. Not only is it making a backup, it is also making an archive that tracks your files through time.

Most of the software I described previously do not do this. For example, if you edit a document and then back it up, the previous version of your file that was on the backup is over-written. Also if you delete a file, the backup software usually deletes the file off the backup. If later you wish to un-delete the file, you are simply unable to. Time Machine addresses these shortcomings.

The biggest problem with Time Machine is that in order to function as designed, your external drive has to be plugged in and powered on the entire time. This means that the chance of the drive failing is now at least as good as the chance that your own computer’s internal hard drive will fail. Thus if used by itself, or with only one disk in constant use, I am hesitant to call Time Machine (or any backup software that requires the disk to be constantly plugged in) a fully reliable backup. If you used multiple hard drives with Time Machine, and rotated between disks on a periodic (monthly, perhaps) basis, then I am comfortable with it as a backup, and a very powerful backup system as that, because of the ability to track file changes through time.

So it’s fine to use Time Machine, just be aware (and I have seen this happen) that any external hard drive that is spinning will fail eventually. And this applies especially to the Apple Time Capsule product: it’s a single disk and it spins all the time. It will fail. It’s not enough for a backup by itself.

Cloud Services

“Cloud” backup services provide a second, important layer of backup. Usually the service provides software that you use to “sync” your important files on the computer with a remote server located somewhere in the Internet (that’s the “Cloud” part). One nice thing about these services is that the software they provide continuously backs up your computer to the service. So as you add photos or work with documents, within a short time, a copy is stored on the Internet. Files in these services are encrypted and aren’t easily accessible by others, so don’t think that your files are there on the Internet for anyone to see. Many of these services also allow you to, with the use of a password, access your files from anywhere in the world, as an added benefit.

Caveats

There is a myth about cloud services, however, that needs to be dispelled. Many people think that if they upload their data to the “cloud” that someone else is taking care to back their data up to off-line external disks or old-fashioned tape so that if a disaster hits a data server center, they won’t lose anything. This is not true. These cloud services store your files on large arrays of disks (thousands of disks), arranged in such a way so that entire disks can fail and the data is not lost. There is redundancy built in, but not backup. Should their entire disk arrays fail (in a hurricane or earthquake, for example), you will lose your data. However the chances of this happening are much, much smaller than the chance of losing your own computer’s single hard drive. Also companies try to spread your backup out among many data centers across North America. So while cloud backup is better than no backup, it’s not a completely sure thing. Of course no backup is completely sure. That’s why a cloud service is simply a convenient addition to your backup arsenal to reduce your chances of data loss.

Also, cloud backup services require you to upload your files to them over your internet connection. If your ISP limits you to so many gigabytes per month, be aware that the backup might exceed that. Some cloud backup software lets you “throttle” or limit how much bandwidth the software will use. If you have a large number of photos to back up this way, it could take months to copy everything to the service the first time. After that, new files could be uploaded much more quickly.

Free Cloud Services

Free cloud services are often paid for by advertising or other revenue streams. They don’t offer very much space but can still be useful. Here are a number of example services:

  • CrashPlan (http://www.crashplan.com/) – Provides zero storage for free, but the free version lets you back up to friends’ and family’s computers via the Internet. This is a convenient way of making your own “cloud” backup system using spare space on others’ computers. The only requirement is that each computer be continuously connected to the Internet. You must specifically allow certain people to back up to your computer and they must allow you to back up to their computers. Size is only limited by available hard drive space on friend’s computer. Files you store on a friend’s computer are not readable to him or her, and files they store on your computer are not readable to you, as they are encrypted for privacy. Also if your hard drive crashes any data backed up there by others is lost as well. Likewise, if a friend's computer crashes you have backed up to, you will lose your backup data also. But hopefully if you back up to more than one place the chance of a total loss is small.
  • Mozy (http://mozy.com) – Provides 5 GB of backup space for free.
  • DropBox (http://www.dropbox.com) – Provides 2 GB of storage for free, and software to backup files from Windows or Mac. Can also be used to share a large file with a friend.
  • Google Drive (https://www.google.com/intl/en_US/drive/start/) – Provides 5 GB of free storage, and software to backup your files from Windows, Mac, or your Android phone.
  • http://www.justcloud.com/ – similar to the others, offers unlimited backup space, free for non-business users.
  • This is not an exhaustive list.

There are many other services. Some provide free backup storage up to a certain limit, and then require a monthly, or yearly fee beyond that. Others make money in other ways. All “cloud” backup services have to pay for themselves one way or another, indirectly at least.

Pay Cloud Services

Most of the free services listed previously offer more backup storage and more space for a cost. Here are some examples of paid services: (I have only used CrashPlan):

There are many others, and new services pop up all the time.

Conclusion

I hope this document provides some information on what can be done affordably to mitigate a hard drive failure or computer crash. Even though your data might not be valuable monetarily, family photos, journals, and other documents can be of immense value to children and even descendants. Though there is a cost associated with backup hard drives, and other backup means, it is time and money well spent, and usually cheaper than the recovery process without a backup.

If you have any questions, please contact me. Michael Torrie, torriem@gmail.com.


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