BUCK UP ON YOUR BACKUP
BY ZAHEER MERCHANT
························ I same t was as if I had told them about a death in the family. My friends sent me the half-consoling, `buck-up' messages of support half when I told them that I'd lost my laptop containing the sole working draft of my novel,“ says Hyderabad-based journalist Jaideep Undurti.
“Inevitably, the next ques- tion would be, `But didn't you have backups?' I'd reply sheepishly, `I did. It was on my friend's laptop... that was stolen too. There was a break-in at the flat.' Apart from notes, bookmarks and e-books meant for reference, I think I lost about 50,000 words.“
If, unlike Undurti, you're fortunate enough to never have lost your most precious bytes to the great hard drive, know this: It will happen to you one day. Your data may never encounter theft, or fire, or floods, or viruses. But there are only two types of hard disks in this world--those that have failed, and those that will.
This fact, however, seems lost on us, citizens of the Infor- mation Age, as a survey of 4,257 computer users in 129 countries by Kabooza, an on- line backup service, showed in December 2008.
Asked “How often do you back up your home PC?“, 54% of respondents said they had no backup whatsoever. Only 18% (about one in five) did perform a backup every day, while 15% said they did irregu- lar backups. A frightening 13% responded with the question, “What is backup?“ A whopping 66% of respondents said they had suffered critical data loss.
Admittedly, backing up is boring. On a scale of dullness, it belongs somewhere between flossing and Farmville. But now that your virtual farm is about the size of Madagas- car and you've harvested the moon's weight in strawberries, why not devote some time to safeguarding your most impor- tant documents, your life- time's worth of photos and your--ahem--entirely legal MP3 collection?
Online backup
If you have a fast broadband connection, online backup is the safest bet. However, if your broadband plan has down- load/upload limits, you may end up spending a lot if you ex- ceed them. But if you are on an unlimited plan, here are two services worth checking out.
Mozy
For: Windows/Mac
Basic: 2GB storage for free
Premium: Unlimited storage for $4.95 (Rs235) a month
Mozy is an automated backup solution. Once you install it on your computer, it will back up any files you specify at a fre- quency of your choice. Mozy can even back up files while they are open. Most impor- tantly, after the initial full backup, it will only upload the portion of a file that has changed and not the entire file all over again. This means sub- sequent backups will be quick- er and use minimal band- width. Mozy stores previous versions of your files for easy restoration. You can restore files by downloading them or order a backup on physical media for a fee.
Dropbox
For: Windows/Mac/Linux
Basic: 2GB storage for free
Pro: 50GB storage for $9.99 a month
Once you install Dropbox, it creates a “My Dropbox“ folder in your Documents folder.
Anything you place in this folder will be synced with your Dropbox account. You can sync files and share them by making the folder public.
You can also restore a previous version of your file--Drop- box keeps a change log going back 30 days. All your files are also accessible via the Drop- box website, which is great if you're at a computer that doesn't have Dropbox in- stalled. Dropbox, unlike Mozy, doesn't have an unlimited storage option, but unless you're backing up movies and other huge files, you're unlikely to breach its 50GB limit.
Online office suites
Whether or not you use any oth- er online backup, switch to on- line suites and you'll never lose an important document again.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets
docs.google.com
This set has a word processor, a spreadsheet program and a pre- sentation program. However, Google Docs isn't 100% Word- compatible. Spreadsheets too has a few compatibility issues with Excel.
Microsoft Live Office
workspace.officelive.com
This is perfect if you need 100% compatibility with Microsoft Of- fice. Live Office is actually a storage and sharing solution rather than an online suite--you can view your files online from anywhere, but not edit them on- line. To do so, you need to download a small plug-in that integrates your desktop Office suite with Live Office.
ThinkFree
www.thinkfree.comThinkFree offers the best bal- ance. It is far more compatible with MS Office than Google Docs and, unlike Live Office, lets you edit documents online. It has three main components--Write (word processor), Calc (spread- sheet), and Show (presentation software). The word processor has two modes: Quick Edit offers a minimal interface with a few toolbar buttons for simple tasks, while Power Edit looks more like a full-featured application.
Offline backup/sync
These programs are ideal if you have a lot of data (several GB) and limited or no Internet access.
Most sync programs allow you to perform traditional one-way backups as well as two-way syncs. Here are two of the best.
Allway Sync `n' Go
Free for personal use; pro version for businesses costs $29.99
Simplicity itself: Add a source directory to the left of the application window, a target directo- ry to the right, hit a button to `analyse' them and then sync.
The target directory can be on another partition of your hard drive, a network drive, a USB stick, an external hard disk or a blank DVD. The first time you run the program, it will ask you to do a complete back- up of the source directory. For subsequent syncs, the program will only update the ones that have changed. You can set it to one-way sync (keep a copy of your files in the target directory even when the original files have been removed from the source directory), or two-way sync (which will delete files from the target directory if they are removed from the source). It also comes in a handy portable version that requires no instal- lation (it is a .exe file, which means you simply run it direct- ly without going through lengthy install wizard dialog boxes and you can bring it along even on a USB stick).
CleanSync
http://code.google.com/p/cleansync
Open source freeware
Say you have two computers and want to keep a pair of synced folders on them. With the help of a modest USB stick, Clean- Sync offers a nifty solution. Let's say you have a folder called Work 1 on one computer and Work 2 on another. With a tradi- tional sync program such as Allway Sync `n' Go, you'd have to sync Work 1 with the USB stick, then attach it to your second computer and sync it with Work 2, effectively creat- ing three copies of the entire folder to achieve synchroniza- tion. However, CleanSync only picks up the changed files, which saves space and time.
Diskimage programs Also known as disk-cloning programs, these are the big daddies of backup, for backing up the entire drive or partition that contains your operating system. They not only backup data files but your entire OS, programs and all, so they are useful for system recovery in case of a hard disk disaster.
They are also useful if you want to upgrade your hard disk without losing your OS, appli- cations and data. Windows “System Restore“ is nothing but an inbuilt disk image pro- gram. However, it has very few features, isn't 100% reliable and won't let you export an im- age to an external drive. But there's a better option.
Acronis True Image
Price: $50;
15day trial version available
While it isn't free, Acronis True Image may be worth paying for.
It has a number of features that most other disk-cloning pro- grams lack, including the ability to exclude specific folders. It also lets you create an image or re- store data without rebooting the system. If your operating system becomes corrupt or your hard disk fails, you can boot up your PC to the Acronis Startup Re- covery Manager using the F11 key, which returns the system to a previous, usable state.
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