.FLYINGHEAD BEST PRACTICES
.TITLE Eight steps to successful and reliable home backups
.AUTHOR Heather Wardell
.SUMMARY We all know we should do it, but most people never do. Then comes that horrible moment when your hard drive fails, or your laptop is stolen, or the "I won’t need that again" file that you deleted becomes vital, and everyone says the same thing: "I should have been backing up my files."
.OTHER
Backing up the computer. We all know we should do it, but most people never do. Then comes that horrible moment when your hard drive fails, or your laptop is stolen, or the "I won’t need that again" file that you deleted becomes vital, and everyone says the same thing:
"I should have been backing up my files."
Well, yes, you should have been. And if you’re not, you should start today. This article will show you how to set up a simple and thorough backup process.
.H1 Step 1: Figure out what you need to back up.
The Documents directory is an obvious source of files that require backing up, but not the only one. Take the time to really think about how you use your computer. Common file categories that are often overlooked include: Internet bookmarks, email address lists, emails saved in a program like Thunderbird, Outlook, or Outlook Express, downloaded music, Microsoft Word’s normal.dot file or settings files from other complicated applications.
.CALLOUT Never rely on one storage location for important files.
Some programs, especially older ones, don’t save their data in the Documents directory by default. Make note of where they do save, or change their preferences to save there if possible.
Think also about things that are online but not necessarily backed up. How about your blog? Gmail has occasionally deleted user accounts without warning, so anything in there that’s mission-critical should be in more than one place as well.
That’s a good rule overall for backups. I have my current novel’s working file stored in my Palm, on my netbook, on my desktop, on an external hard drive, and uploaded to my Web site. If I lose it from all those places simultaneously, I will be deeply surprised. Never rely on one storage site for important files.
It’s not overkill to monitor your computer usage for a week or so to see what files you touch that aren’t stored in your regular documents area.
While you’re at it, take this opportunity to clean up any files that you truly no longer need. Why bother backing up something you’ll never look at again? Of course, do this with caution. How ironic to delete something critical while setting up your backups!
.H1 Step 2: Decide how often each category of information needs to be backed up.
As a writer, I am paranoid about losing any part of the current draft of my current novel. I back these up to an external hard drive after every work session, and send them to an online backup nightly. I am less concerned about the third-last version of a completed novel, which probably doesn’t need to be backed up at all although I like to keep them in case I want them later.
Look through your list of what needs to be backed up and decide how often you need to make that happen. Base that decision on how frequently you change the file in question and how devastated you’d be if you lost it.
.H1 Step 3: Simplify your answers from step 2 into a clear and rational schedule.
While I don’t need daily backups of the third-last-version file I mentioned above, I do run them, because it’s easier than picking and choosing among various files. Every time you make the system more complicated, you increase your risk of missing a file or directory that needs to be backed up. That’s why I recommend first deciding the ideal frequency and then combining the various categories into something that works for you. Simple works for me, so everything that I choose to back up gets backed up nightly, via a scheduled backup.
I generally don’t recommend manual backups; if it’s up to you to remember to run the backups, the chances it’ll be forgotten at just the wrong time are too high to ignore. My post-writing-session backups are manual since the time’s different each time, but I’ve made that part of my writing routine so I can’t forget. And in case I do, those files do still get picked up in the nightly backup.
If you have information that is so crucial it requires more than a nightly backup, I would suggest putting all of that information into its own category and then putting anything else into the nightly one.
Weekly backups of infrequently changed material are also fine. I prefer nightly ones because they make me more comfortable. It might seem excessive, but I would rather run my backups more often than necessary than find myself wishing I had.
.H1 Step 4: Choose your backup location.
Many people backup only to another drive in their computer, or to an external hard drive. This is certainly better than not backing up at all, and will protect you from a hard drive failure or your own accidental deletion of files, but if you’re robbed or your house burns down, your backups will be lost.
For this reason, I suggest additionally storing your most crucial files online. There are a variety of companies that provide online storage at a range of costs. I personally prefer to keep my files under my own control as much as possible, so I instead upload my most important files to my Web site (zipped and password protected for security). At the moment, this zip file is about two megabytes, and it contains only the files I would be devastated to lose. In my case, this is final versions of novels and all files for the novel in progress.
My backup routine involves an external hard drive connected to my home network. I can direct backups there from my desktop computer and my writing-focused netbook and know that they’re all in one safe place. Another hard drive installed in your own computer is another option. The worst option is using another directory on your main hard drive as your sole backup: if the drive fails, you lose your backups as well.
I strongly recommend an external drive, since keeping the backup separate from your physical computer is safer.
.H1 Step 5: Choose your software.
I use the free edition of SyncBack by 2BrightSparks (at http://2brightsparks.com/). I’ve been using it for years, on a variety of computers (both Windows XP and Vista) and it’s never caused me a hint of trouble. It allows me to choose the exact files and directories I want backed up and can run scheduled backups without my involvement. I will illustrate the process of creating a backup task with SyncBack, but any decent backup software will work in a similar manner.
.H1 Step 6: Create and schedule your backups.
In Figure A, you see the basics of defining a backup. ‘Source’ refers to where the files are coming from, and ‘destination’ is where they will be backed up. There are a lot of options, of course, but for the most part you can stick with the standard choices. In my newly created backup, all subdirectories of my Documents directory will be copied to my external hard drive, and any deleted files will be kept in the backup.
.FIGPAIR A SyncBack makes it easy to create a simple backup structure.
Once your backup is created, run it and see what happens. Check the backup to see if it looks like what you expected. Did you miss any key files? Are there things in there that aren’t necessary? I once manually zipped up all my music files and then began using SyncBack, which resulted in my accidentally having both this manual backup and all the actual files being included in the SyncBack backup. Deleting the now unnecessary zip file made the backup faster and much smaller.
If your schedule from Step 3 requires, create another backup as needed, then run it and check it. Repeat until you’ve got everything you need.
Then decide when you want them to run. I like to have my backups run around two in the morning since I’m never on the computer then, but choose a time that won’t disturb you. If you don’t leave your computer on overnight, you can have the backups run at lunch or during your typical coffee break time.
.H1 Step 7: Test the restore function.
So vital. All the carefully scheduled backups in the world are useless if you can’t get into the stored files. SyncBack keeps the files exactly as they were in the source, unlike some backup programs which convert them to their own format, which is nice, but still, go in and check.
Can you open the files? Do they look right? If you’ve password-protected them, are you positive you won’t forget that password if, in two years, you need to access the backup? And you didn’t use a password like ‘backup’ or ‘files’, right?
.H1 Step 8: Schedule regular assessments.
If you’ve created your backup directories well, you shouldn’t end up having files being missed. But it’s good to check. I check my backup reports at least monthly to make sure that everything I’d expect to find backed up is indeed being included.
From time to time, I do change my backups to erase deleted files, but even though I do it I don’t recommend it. I do it only when I’m certain I won’t regret it, but it’s always possible I’ll make a mistake. Better, if you have the storage space, to label it "old backup" and begin again with a fresh copy of the current files. You might only need something from the old backups once, but if you have it, you’ll be thrilled.
.H1 How it all works in practice
Here is my backup routine. Bear in mind that I (a) have a lot of storage space on the external hard drive and (b) am utterly paranoid about losing my writing-related files. Your own routine may be very different from mine, and that’s fine, so long as you develop a routine that fits your needs.
.H2 Online sources of files
I manually run Blogger’s blog backup once a week or whenever I’ve posted a few times, and direct the resultant files to the Documents directory on my desktop computer.
My web-based email accounts don’t contain anything crucial at this time, so I don’t back them up.
.H2 Netbook computer
I use this machine purely for writing, so its backups are all on-demand and document-related. To ensure that I don’t overwrite a particularly brilliant paragraph from yesterday with today’s dull replacement, I run a different backup job each day of the work week, putting that day’s version of the files into its own folder. Each week, those versions are overwritten with the new week’s version. This way, I always have the last five days’ worth of versions. Since I also save files under a new name if I make significant changes I feel I might regret, this ensures I’ll always be able to revert to an older version if I need to.
These backups are all directed to the external hard drive.
I also use SyncBack on the netbook to keep its files synchronized with the files on my Palm, since I do sometimes edit (or fiddle with) my writing on the go.
.H2 Desktop computer
Netbook backups: This machine accesses the netbook daily at 11:30PM and 11:45PM. The first backup doesn’t keep any files that no longer exist on the netbook (thereby creating an exact copy of the netbook’s directories) and the second keeps all deleted files. These are put into the desktop’s Documents directory.
My Documents: Copy all files from Documents to the external hard drive. This runs at one in the morning, and includes all picture and music files, as well as my blog backups, a copy of everything on my Palm, and the netbook’s backups.
Web site uploads: I copy the first netbook backup to my Web site at 1:30AM, and copy all key Palm files (datebook, address book, memo pad, task list) to my Web site at 2:00AM.
All written out, it looks overdone and excessive. And perhaps it is. But when I accidentally overwrote the final version of my first novel, I was so very glad I had the backups in place. It’ll take a few hours to set up, but it’s well worth it.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Learn about SyncBack at http://2brightsparks.com/.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
