Look What's In Store
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday July 23, 2007
Broadband lets you backup precious files off-site and safely, writes Helen Bradley.
People who have lost important data through a failed hard disk often become instant evangelists for backup solutions. Only say the word and they'll regale you with tales of what they have lost and how a simple backup would have saved them. If you haven't backed up the data on your computer recently, here are some reasons why you should and a way to do it.The data on your computer is personal to you and nobody but you has it. It is nearly impossible to recover if your computer crashes and you don't have a duplicate stored somewhere safe. Your options include backing up on CDs, DVDs or an external hard disk.One problem with these solutions in the long term is that they require you to do the work and, typically, the backup will be stored in the same location as the computer, which means they too can be destroyed by fire, flood and so on.It's a good idea not only to have an automated backup solution that is run regularly but also to store at least one copy of your backups in an external location. With the availability of broadband internet connections, online backup is possible and solves the problem of storing data off-site.One online backup tool is provided by Carbonite.com. Carbonite has a free 15-day trial and you don't need a credit card to sign up. To continue using it after this time costs about $60 a year for unlimited backup. There are, however, upload limits, so expect to backup between 2GB and 3GB a day. When you reach 50GB, you can upload only 0.5GB a day, with no upper limit on storage.Carbonite installs a small application onto your computer to manage the backup process. The data you're backing up is encrypted before being uploaded to the Carbonite servers, so it's secured while being transmitted. Carbonite's backup runs in the background, using your computer and internet resources when you aren't. There is a default setting for the initial backup but you can change this and backup the files you choose. Use the Carbonite icon in your system tray to view the status and progress of your backup. Carbonite adds small dots to the icons of the files it has backed up and colour dots to those that are scheduled for backing up. You can set files or folders to be backed up by right-clicking the folder and choosing Carbonite, Back This Up.If you need to restore from your backup, you can locate the Carbonite secure backup drive in your My Computer area. Open the drive and right-click the file to restore and choose where to restore it - the original location or a different one.Whatever option you choose for your backups, it's important to run the backups regularly and to store at least one version of your files off-site.
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald