Backup Options

 Backup Options For Home Users   Backup Options For Businesses

The Need For Backups

It's the part of your PC that is most likely to fail.  It's also the part of your PC that is the damaging when it DOES fail.  All of your data - the years of research, the family photos - your resume, your business plan - it all lives and dies with your hard drive.  Too often people lull themselves into a false sense of security - they know they SHOULD back up their data, they know that hard drives fail all the time, and everybody knows people that have lost their data to a failed hard drive or a computer virus. 

Have you been telling yourself this?

• "It won't happen to me"
• "This computer is brand new"
• "Most hard drives last a long time - mine will last at least one more day..."

And the big one- "I'll start backing up tomorrow"

Thankfully, you're searching for your backup options.  Hopefully, it's BEFORE your hard drive has failed.  If you've waited too long, and you've experienced a hard drive failure, you have some options to get your data back.  Check out our write-up on hard drive recovery options, and you can always try our good friends at Drive Savers.  They are fast, affordable and unstoppable!

 Backup Options For Home Users

What to backup: For most home users, it comes down to 2 things - Their documents and their media (pictures and music). All of the data that home users need to back up are included in your user profile (XP stores this in "C:\Documents and Settings\" while Vista stores this in "C:\Users\") The folders that you will need to backup are:

• Favorites
• My Documents
• My Pictures
• My Music 
• Desktop

Unfortunately , this doesn't address 2 key things that people want backed up:  Email and the Address Book.  Since these are usually stored in Hidden Files, it's best to use the options inside your email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Microsoft Mail, Etc.) to export them or back them up. (Each one has detailed instructions in their help files)

If, on the other hand, you've made the switch to checking email by using web browsers to check your Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! account, then your email and address book are not stored on your local hard drive anyway. 

Hardware options:

Your hardware backup options include:

• Inexpensive disposable media - Jump drives (thumb drives), CDs, and DVDs
• External hard drives - connecting via USB, Firewire, or eSATA (just make sure your computer has the right connection before you purchase the drive USB2 is most common)
• Network Attached Storage (NAS) or Network Shares
• Windows Home Server

Options for how to backup:

Windows Built in backup option: NTBackup

• XP Users - Click "Start" >> "Run" >> type "ntbackup". 
• Vista Users - Click the Windows Icon then "Start Search" for "Backup".  Select "Backup and Restore Center" from the list of available programs.

What it does:  An excellent job (especially Vista) for keeping users settings backed up, as well as All documents, pictures, and media files on the computer.
What is doesn't do (well): A full backup, with regularly scheduled incrementals.  Also there can be difficulties with "bare metal restores"

Retail Software: Acronis True Image Home 2009

How Much: Around $50 for a 1 system license, $20 each additional.  Depending on current offers, prices can vary on initial licenses, upgrades, and extra licenses for additional systems.

What "extra" options do you get for the money:

• All of the "basic" features that Windows built-in provides.
• Dual-backup - you can backup to both a network location AND a USB device during one backup process.
• Searchable archives- the backup archives are searchable - not just the file names but ALSO the text within the backups.
• Archival "Flattening"- A full backup takes everything and saves it in one file.  An incremental only saves the files that have changed since the last full backup, and saves it into one file.  All those backup files can add up.  Use "flattening" to consolidate those incremental backups, and keep them in one file.
• Total Failure Recover- You don't have to be in Windows to operate the software.  You can access it even if your Operating System is really botched by pressing the F11 key during startup.

Retail Software: Norton Ghost 14

How Much: Around $70 for a 1 system license

What "extra" options do you get for the money:

• All of the "basic" options that Windows built-in provides.
• Searchable archives- the backup archives are searchable - not just the file names but ALSO the text within the backups.
• LightsOut Restore- restores your system with an on-disk software recovery environment- no bootable CD required in case the OS crashes.
• Symantec ThreatCon integration— triggers incremental backups whenever ThreatCon reaches a specified threat level - so if virus activity across the country is spiking, it begins backing up.
• Saves to FTP servers or NAS servers
• Is able to read and backup Linux partitions
• Excellent support is available by phone, email, and chat

Retail Software: Norton SystemWorks Premier Edition 12

How Much: Around $100 for a 1 system, 1 year subscription

What "extra" options do you get for the money:

• All of the "basic" options that Windows built-in provides.
• All of the "advanced" options that Norton Ghost 14 provides (except saving to an FTP server - don't know why).
• Also includes Norton Antivirus 2009.
• Diagnoses and fixes hard drive problems.
• Diagnoses and fixes Windows registry errors.
• Complete deletion of files you want to delete (most files can still be"undeleted" if they haven't been overwritten on the disk - this can prevent that from happening)
• Ability to restore deleted files on searchable media (think Jump drives and cameras)

Online Backup Options: Windows Live, Skydrive, Amazon, Google, Dell, etc. (also generically referred to as "The Cloud")

The Good:

• Accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection (the accessibility is very nice)
• Usually inexpensive (often free)
• Easy to use

The Bad:

• Accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection (all that accessibility can also cause privacy and security concerns).
• Slow file transfer - it's often moved "to the cloud" in small groups of files - not hardly the "one-click" experience you get from the built-in and retail versions listed above.
• Limited space is available - for example, it's usually enough for peoples important files, but not enough for most peoples music collections.
• Little support - it's often provided by the vendors "as is" or "in Beta" (testing).
• Often supported by ads.
• Not a full system backup - if your computer ever fails, your files "in the cloud" will be fine, but the OS and the installed programs will have to be reinstalled.

Backup Options For Businesses 

For small businesses the backup options are essentially the same as home users. However, the needs are compounded by the dependence that your customers, vendors, shareholders and employees have on the availability of that data. 

As your business grows so does your backup options.  Adding servers to your infrastructure increases the complexity but simplify the process (if that makes sense).  Essentially - there is more backing up going on but as it grows all of the backups are being facilitated by a backup server. 

For a detailed analysis of your backup options, your backup needs, and to sign up for our Managed Services which enables Conquer Technology to monitor, maintain, and ensure that backup jobs are running as expected and restore jobs are available and verified, contact us directly.  We are happy to discuss your options with you in depth.

Thank you very much and we hope this has provided a service to you.