The Creative Cauldron - Article called Backups, A Simple Way To Have Peace Of Mind

To receive a copy of this article to use on your website or in your newsletter just send me an e-mail at
Put "Article Request: Backups" in the subject line.

Backups, A Simple Way To Have Peace Of Mind

I've been working with computers for over twenty-five years, and if there's one piece of advice I can give, it's to make backups. If possible, back up daily or at least weekly.

I spend countless hours working on my computer. Creating articles, websites, books, business plans and much more. If I were to lose this data, it would be difficult or impossible to replace. Let me tell you some examples of why backing up your information is a good thing.

Recently, I sent my computer in for repair. I spent an entire day working around its problems to make a current backup of my important files. It was a good thing I did this, because the company replaced my hard drive, even though the problems had nothing to do with that part. Without my backup, I would have lost a week of work on numerous projects, including several clients websites.

A friend of mine recently called to see if I had a copy of the website I'd designed for him almost two years ago. I told him I did (I always keep copies of my client's sites). His computer had crashed and he had lost all of his files. At the same time, the company where his site was hosted had their server crash, and his site was one of several hundred that had been lost. So I gave him a copy of his site, but all the articles, updates and images he had changed in the last year were gone. Unfortunately, he hadn't made a backup in a year.

I can't begin to tell you how many people have contacted me over the years in a panic because their computer had crashed or a file was corrupted. None of these people had ever made a backup. Their only choice was to recreate the information or take the computer to a professional data recovery service, and this is expensive. While there are ways to recover lost or damaged files, most people don't have the time or money to do it. Instead they must deal with the consequences of losing the files. I know of several people who have been fired for not having a backup of a critical document that became damaged.

Most professionals suggest backing up files daily. Personally, I think that's a little over the top. I prefer to make backups weekly, if I make important changes to a specific file, then I will back it up when I'm done working on it. You can easily back up specific files daily using USB Flash Drives. These are small devices about the size of your thumb. They plug into a USB port on your computer and work like little hard drives, but there are no moving parts. All you have to do is a "Save As" for the file, and save it to the Flash Drive. This will give your files added protection until you do your weekly backup, and they only cost about $30.

Before we start talking about how to back up your files, let's talk about how to set up your files so they're easy to find and back up. I suggest you put all of the files you create, from every software program, into one folder. In this folder, you can have subfolders to help organize them if you wish. You can use the "My Documents" folder, or create your own. You can do this with existing files by doing a "Save As" and just save it to the "My Documents" folder. I have a "Jeff" folder and a "Graphics" folder. In "Jeff," I keep all the files I make from Word, GoLive, Excel and other programs. Any graphics I use or create, I have in the "Graphics" folder. Then, when I make backups I just have to select these two folders instead of hunting around my whole hard drive for the files I want to backup.

You will also want to have at least three generations of backups. These are often called the Father, Grandfather and Great-Grandfather. If you back up weekly, this gives you three weeks of backups. This protects you in case a file is corrupted. The three generations lets you go back three weeks to find an uncorrupted version. I actually have about a year's worth of backups. You should also keep a copy of your backups off site. If your house is flooded, burns down or is burglarized, then you will still have a copy of your files elsewhere. I have kept copies at a (trusted) friend's house and in a safety deposit box.

A couple of warnings. Most versions of Windows come with a backup feature, but I don't recommend it. Your files are compressed in this procedure and must be "Restored" before they can be used. I have tried using this procedure about ten times, yet I have only been able to successfully "Restore" files once. The "Restore" procedure can be very tricky, so I don't advise using it.

If you have only a few files to back up, and decide to use floppy disks be aware the floppies wear out. It may take a few months, or a couple of years, but they will wear out, and all the files you have on that floppy will be unusable. I strongly recommend that you avoid using floppies for backups. If you want, you can use the USB Flash Drive I mentioned for this.

There are two main options for backing up your computer. You can copy the files to a CD or DVD, or you can use an external hard drive.

Backing up to a CD or DVD is probably the easiest. Most computers made in the past three years or so come with a CD or DVD burner. A CD will hold about 700 megabytes, and a single-sided DVD will hold about 4.5 gigabytes. Either one of these is ample for most people. I do back up a lot of programs, graphics and websites, so I'm filling three CD's weekly. I'm planning on buying a new computer soon, and I'll be sure it has a DVD burner just to make things easier on me.

Your other option is to back up to an external hard drive. You can buy these almost anywhere, and pretty inexpensively on eBay. About $100 is all you'll need. All you have to do then is to back up your files to this hard drive. You won't be able to store one set of backups with you and one set off site unless you buy two drives. These external drives are large enough that you could back up your entire hard drive instead of just the files you create.

So take the few minutes a week you need to back up your files, and have the peace of mind that they will always be available to you.

Do you want to learn how to make your website work for you and not against you? Then visit The Creative Cauldron NOW to find the answers to your questions, and achieve what you want in life. Go to www.TenCommonWebMistakes.com to download the FREE report "Ten Common Mistakes Found On Websites, And How To Fix Them."