We buy insurance for our vehicles, our homes, our lives and many other things. But, most people overlook insuring the safety of the data on their computers.
Consumers - What are your family photos, digital music, videos, email, address book and documents worth to you?
Business Clients - What is your accounting information, invoices, client database, and mission critical information worth to you?
If you store any sort of important information on your computer, or can't spare to have your computer crash on you for more than a few hours at most, you need a backup solution.
In this weekly tip we'll take a look at a couple of options available to you.
The first thing to look at is what you need to have a safe backup copy. You will need either a CD/DVD Burner or an external hard drive. It is no good for you to create a backup of your hard drive on the hard drive itself. If the hard drive fails you're left no better off.
Nerds On Site can get you a DVD Burner for $65, ($120 installed), or a 160GB external hard drive for $120 ($160 installed).
Option 1: Windows Backup
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition and Professional Edition both come with Microsoft Backup as part of the package. You can use MS Backup to back up files and folders or entire disks. To access MS Backup, go to Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Backup.
If you run Home Edition, you will not have MS Backup installed by default. It is available on your Windows XP Installation CD under the "Add-Ins" folder. You will need to manually install.
Windows XP also has a tool called the "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard". This Wizard can be configured to backup all of your customizations to windows (look and feel) as well as your email, email accounts, favourites, My Documents, My Pictures, and My Videos as well as some of the settings for your favorite programs like Winamp or Photoshop. Simply run the wizard (Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->File and Settings Transfer Wizard) and select the files you want to backup.
Option 2: Full System Backup
If down time for more than a few hours costs you money, you should be performing Full System Backups at least monthly, in addition to regular incremental backups of files that you update/add/change frequently. There are a number of good solutions for full system backups that create a mirror image of your computer. This image can then be restored to any computer you want, and be exactly the way your computer was at the time of backup. EXACTLY THE SAME. The advantage of a full system backup is that you don't have to reinstall windows, install all your programs, then restore your backup. You simply restore the image and away you go.
The 2 best programs to do this in my opinion are Norton Ghost (I like version 9 better than version 10 personally) and Acronis True Image. Both programs cost around $70.
Option 3: Offsite, Online Synchronized Backup
A synchronized backup keeps a list of files that you want to keep backed up, and then whenever any changes are made to those files, or new files are added to the folders included in the backup, those files are automatically uploaded to an offsite location stored on secure, redundant servers. In case of a crash you simply reload windows and restore the files online from the server.
This solution is a must for businesses - for insurance purposes, your backups must be stored at an offsite location!
Nerds On Site offers an excellent tool called "Nerds Backup" (Click Here for more Info). Nerds Backup is a small little program that runs on your computer all of the time. It uses only a little memory and hard drive space so you don't even know it is there. The user configures Nerd Backup with the files and folders to backup and then Nerds Backup takes care of the rest. Whenever any changes are made to the files or folders selected for backup, Nerds Backup will automatically send the newest version for backup.
Now you may be worried about where your data is going. All data from Nerds Backup is stored at the Q9 Data Centre in Mississauga, Ontario - the same location where the major banks store their websites and data. This location has 100% uptime, meaning your files are always available to you from your computer, or any other computer you use so long as you have your username and password. Nerds Backup can also keep up to 24 versions of every file backed up for you (the number of versions is configured by the user from 1 to 24 versions). That means that if you make a change to a document, but want to go back in time to a previous version, you simply load Nerds Backup and restore the older version to your computer.
Once Nerds Backup is installed you don't have to do anything - just set it and forget it, knowing you are protected in case your computer crashes or you need to access your important files from anywhere in the world.
Right now I'm offering a NerdsBackup special:
$54.99 one-time installation fee, regular $79.99
$2 per 1 Gigabyte of data per month. That's right - for $2/month you can keep your emails, pictures, client/contact information safe and secure.
14 Day Free Trial
This offer expires December 31st, 2006.
That's the tip for this week. Stay tuned for more information next week.
Regards,
Ben Wiper
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