Data backup: Safe, simple, fast

Data safety is one of the "hot" issues that are of great interest, especially for ordinary PC users. Suppose, one day your important data will disappear! So how much sweat and effort "poured into the river and into the sea".

A lot of users are still very indifferent to backing up data.They argue that data backup is a waste of time!How about you?Please back up the data to protect, and save yourself.

Data backup like data?

In Windows XP and 2000, you need to back up the folder C: Documents and Settings .This is where all the data about the user is stored.So create at least one backup of this directory and financial data, taxes, important documents, emails, digital photos, videos . and other personal data.

A perfect data backup system such as hard disk image creation will help you recover quickly when the hard disk fails, but requires you to have a second hard disk or use multiple optical disks to back up data.The best time to create a disk image is right after installing Windows and when installing the application.Disk images include a copy of Windows and all programs that have been configured according to user needs.However, you can also only backup folders and data that are really important to you.

Separate partitions for data security

By default, Windows and most applications store files in the My Documents folder by default.This folder stores all digital photos, music, videos . and other files and stores them in one place for easy copying.Unfortunately, this folder is often located on the same boot partition of Windows - so the possibility of vulnerability and failure is very likely to occur.Therefore, creating a partition to store data is always a good idea.

Creating a partition to save data is simpler, easier and safer because you can avoid overwriting files when reinstalling Windows.Here's a solution: Divide the hard disk into logical drives (partitions) to store data for different uses, C: drive for the operating system, drive D: for storage. application, drive E: to store data on finance, business . and partition F: to store digital photos, audio and video files.

To be able to create a simple hard diskpartitionuseSymantec'sPartition Magic 8for $ 70 orAcronis'sDisk Director Suitefor $ 50.These utilities make the hard disk partitioning process simple, fast and without losing data on the hard disk.

If you do not have the same conditions and experience to use these tools, you can still use My Documents as your personal data center. You can specify the path for My Documents to a folder on another partition. Open Windows Explorer , right-click My Documents , select Properties , select the Move button in the Target tab, and browse to the folder you want to select. Finally, click OK to finish.

To change the default folder of Outlook Express to store email.Open this program, click Tools-> Options-> Maintenance-> Store Folder-> Change , select the folder containing the emails, and press OK to close.

A very important element of data backup is storing multiple copies in different places - because backup media can be damaged and you don't want to lose important files.Therefore, backing up a few copies in CD / DVD or other backup media is necessary, safe and not wasteful.

However, you must also choose the data backup solution accordingly.For example, if the files need to backup up to 2 GB and you want to store 3 separate copies?Sure, you cannot back up on a single CD, and it also takes a lot of time to upload to the Web server.Appropriate solution used in this case is DVD and external hard drive.In contrast, with data about 200 MB, backing up data on CD or online backup is the best solution.

For many people, DVD is the backup media of selected data.The price of recorded DVD drives is also significantly reduced, and the DVD capacity can be stored several times larger than a CD.Moreover the rewritable DVDs are also cheaper, and are available.Using DVD can eliminate the hassle of having to change discs many times, so you will "take care" of more backups!The price of the method of backing up data by DVD is not about 10 to 20 cents / GB.

If searching for devices that back up data without requiring disk removal, use external hard drives such as Western Digital's Media Center, 250 GB for $ 230, or Maxtor's OneTouch for a price. 270 USD with 300 GB capacity.

Online data backup services likeXDriveandIbackuphave a relatively high price of $ 10 / month.Although these services also allow trial use, they are only suitable for broadband connections.One thing to note is that online data backup is quite secure, these services provide quite good data security.

Finally, another high-cost data backup method is using USB Flash memory cards.Backup with a memory card has a small size but has a small storage capacity of about 1 GB and a relatively high price of 70 USD.

To select the appropriate backup media, you can refer to the following table:

The most effective backup strategy

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

Step 2: Run the backup software, and select the partitions, the folder files for backup purposes you want to protect.Don't worry about data such as email, address book, and calendar . If you're unsure, what data needs to be backed up, open the appropriate applications and look for settings and options. choose in those programs.

Step 3: Password protection and data encryption to protect privacy is absolutely necessary.Moreover, please include the description of that backup, such as "This is a backup version of 12.1.2006. bak" . Comments like this will make it easier to remember.Saving storage space by compressing backup files is also a good solution.

Step 4: Use applications to check the function of why data works perfectly and correctly is really necessary.This helps you avoid "headaches" when using a corrupted backup and cannot recover.Safer, use 2 backups.(Copying from the first DVD or CD to the second disk will be much faster and save time using the data backup utility twice.).

Step 5: After you have created a full baseline backup , you can minimize the amount of time and free space required by differential backup usage.This backup method only retrieves the data that has been changed since the full data backup.

Incremental (incremental backup) data backup for fast speed and less disk space required. But to recreate the files from these backups, it is necessary to restore the backups in the correct order. Finally, you should not overwrite the full data backup ( baseline ), you should only overwrite differential ( differential ) backups or incremental ( incremental ) backups after you have created a data backup. Full data contains the same data content.

Minh Phuc