Providing onsite computer care for metro-west "495" area of Massachusetts

What is the best device to back-up data?

It is becoming clear that the only effective way to back up the huge amounts of data we have all accumulated on our ever-increasingly-large hard drives with the another hard drive!

Floppy disks? You can't be serious. Most new computers do not even have a floppy disk drive installed in them anymore. Most floppy drives on older computers are so dirty and dust-filled that nothing will ever be readable. They only handle 1.4 MB of data per disk, and it would take 4 disks to hold a single typical MP3 digital song! Forget it!

Tape backup? Again, you can't be serious.  Tapes are definitely "old school" for the average home or small-business user. They are notorious for apparently "backing up" without errors, but oh! when you need to recover, suddenly the tape begins to get error after error and often times the data is unable to be recovered.

CD burner or DVD burner? Not a bad choice, definitely inexpensive, and the only method that allows you to store the backup data with the least amount of space and with the least cost. CD-R discs are limited to 700 MB per disc, DVD+R discs are limited to 4.5 GB per disc. Backing up a 160GB hard drive requires a lot of DVDs and a mountain of CD-R discs!

USB flash drive? A wonderful device perfectly suited to backup a small amount of data quickly. Perfect for saving Quicken or Quickbooks accounts, a term paper, a school project, a college thesis, etc. Depending upon the size, it may not be large enough to backup the entire "My Documents" folder, usually because the "My Pictures" and "My Music" subfolders are HUGE !!! If you just back up the individual files inside "My Documents" then the average USB flash drive is the right device for you.

External hard drive? Definitely the best choice of all. The two main advantages are capacity (most are equal to or greater than the size of your computer's internal hard drive) and speed (the fastest possible backup assuming the use of USB 2.0 ports). It easily backs up the entire "My Documents" folder with the typically huge "My Pictures" and "My Music" subfolders.

What is the best back-up program to use?

It is important to understand that none of us will ever back-up our data on a regular basis without some type of computerized reminder. And in reality, having the computer perform the backup all by itself on a regular schedule is the only way to reliably backup computer data. We are kidding ourselves that will remember to backup our data on a regular basis.

Thus, a good backup program that can automatically schedule a backup is the best way to backup your data. Personally I really like NTI's Backup Now! which can be found at www.ntius.com  It will back up to CD, DVD, USB flash drive, or external hard drive.

I have not had good experiences with EMC/Dantz's Retrospect unfortunately, and I do not recommend it. I find the user interface very hard for the average person to understand, and I have had problems with reliability (of restoring data from backups).

Call Ed Sterling at 978-779-6058 from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. 
Or Email: pcdoctorhousecalls@comcast.net
(There is no charge for a brief assessment of your computer problem)

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