Data Backup: Safe, Simple, Fast

Data security is one of the “hot” issues that is very much in focus, especially among everyday PC users. Imagine one day all your important data disappears! All the sweat and effort you put in would have gone “down the drain.”

Many users still show indifference towards data backup. They think that backing up data is unnecessary and time-consuming! What about you? It’s time to back up your data to protect yourself and save your efforts.

What data should you back up?

In Windows XP and 2000, you need to back up the folder C:Documents and Settings. This is where all user data is stored. Therefore, make at least one backup copy of this folder along with financial data, tax documents, important files, emails, digital photos, videos… and other personal data.

An ideal data backup system, such as creating a disk image, will help you recover quickly in case of hard drive failure. However, it requires a second hard drive or multiple optical disks to back up the data. The best time to create a disk image is right after installing Windows and when setting up applications. A disk image includes a copy of Windows and all programs configured according to your needs. However, you can also choose to back up only the folders and data that are truly important to you.

Separate partitions for data safety

By default, Windows and most applications store files in the My Documents folder. This folder seems to contain all digital photos, music, videos… and other files, making it easy to copy. Unfortunately, this folder often resides on the same partition as the Windows boot drive, making it vulnerable and prone to damage. Therefore, creating a separate partition for storing data is always a good idea.

Creating a partition to store data will be simpler, easier, and safer as you can avoid overwriting files when reinstalling Windows. Here’s a solution: divide the hard drive into logical disks (partitions) for storing data based on different usage purposes, such as C: for the operating system, D: for application storage, E: for financial and business data… and partition F: for storing digital photos, audio files, and videos.

To easily create a hard disk partition, you can use Partition Magic 8 from Symantec for $70 or Disk Director Suite from Acronis for $50. These utilities simplify the disk partitioning process and do not result in data loss on the hard drive.

If you lack the means or experience to use these tools, you can still use My Documents as a central storage hub for your personal data. You can designate the path for My Documents to a folder on another partition. Open Windows Explorer, right-click on My Documents, select Properties, click the Move button in the Target tab, and browse to the desired folder. Finally, click OK to complete the process.

To change the default folder of Outlook Express for storing emails, open the program, click on Tools->Options->Maintenance->Store Folder->Change, select the folder that contains the emails, and click Ok to close it.

An essential factor in data backup is storing multiple copies in various locations—because backup media can fail, and you don’t want to lose important files. Therefore, backing up several copies on CDs/DVDs or other backup media is necessary, safe, and not wasteful.

However, you must also choose an appropriate backup solution. For example, if the files you need to back up total 2 GB and you want to store 3 separate copies, you certainly cannot back them up on a single CD, and it would take a lot of time to upload to a web server. In this case, the appropriate solution is using DVDs and external hard drives. Conversely, for data around 200 MB, backing up on CDs or online storage would be the optimal solution.

For many people, DVDs are the preferred backup medium. The prices of writable DVD drives have significantly decreased, and the capacity of DVDs can store several times more than CDs. Moreover, rewritable DVDs have also become cheaper and more available. Using DVDs can eliminate the hassle of frequently changing disks, making you more diligent about backups! The cost of backup via DVDs is also reasonable, around 10 to 20 cents per GB.

If you’re looking for backup devices that don’t require disk swapping, consider external hard drives like the Western Digital Media Center with a capacity of 250 GB for $230, or the OneTouch from Maxtor priced at $270 with a capacity of 300 GB.

Online backup services such as XDrive and Ibackup tend to be relatively expensive at $10/month. Although these services offer trial periods, they are only suitable for broadband connections. It’s worth noting that online data backup is quite secure, as these services provide good data security.

Lastly, a high-cost backup method is using USB Flash memory cards. Backing up with memory cards offers compact size but limited storage capacity, typically around 1 GB, and the price is relatively high at $70.

To choose the right backup medium, you can refer to the following table:

Step 1: Consider and select important files and data to back up.

Step 2: Run backup software and select the partitions and folders you want to back up. Don’t worry too much about data like emails, address books, and calendars… If unsure about what data needs to be backed up, open appropriate applications and look for settings and options in those programs.

Step 3: Protect passwords and encrypt data to ensure privacy is crucial. Furthermore, add descriptions for the backup, such as “This is the backup from 12.1.2006.bak”… Such notes will help you remember better. Saving storage space by compressing backup files is also a good solution.

Step 4: Using applications to check the backup function’s operation is essential. This helps you avoid “headaches” when using a corrupted backup that cannot be restored. For safety, use 2 backups. (Copying from the first DVD or CD to the second will be much quicker and save time compared to using a backup utility twice.)

Step 5: After creating a full data backup (baseline backup), you can minimize the time and space required by using differential backup (differential backup). This backup method only takes the data that has changed since the full data backup.

Incremental backup provides faster speeds and requires less hard drive space. However, to reconstruct files from these backups, you need to restore backups in the correct order. Finally, do not overwrite the full data backup (baseline); you should only overwrite differential (differential) or incremental backups (incremental) after creating a full data backup containing the same data content.