Why Back up your Drive/s ?

Data Recovery Insurance -

If you only have one drive on your computer and it fails you have probably lost everything, all your data - photographs, correspondence, emails etc... you may have the programmes you use on their install disks, so you could reinstall them on a new drive, which might take you days; but you may never retrieve your lost data if you did not make a backup!

For maximum piece of mind - security of data and System Survival you should

1. produce a clone of your system drive as described in part 1

2, make copies of all your data

3. store those copies and the Clone in a secure location

Scenario 1

You install a second drive into your computer and back up to that

Then you suffer a lightening strike, power surge, fire or theft causes data loss - you've still lost the lot!

Loss through theft and accident is more likely if you are using a laptop, that you take off the premises as you normally only have one drive on a laptop.

Scenario 2

You purchase a 1TB external drive for £70 (July 2010 prices) and make regular copies of your internal drive to it.

Better but if you leave that external drive connected to the same power supply next to your computer you still have Scenario 1 vulnerability

Scenario 3

as scenario 2 but you disconnect the external drive when not in use and store in a different location say the garage

Scenario 4

as Scenario 3 but you have two externals marked 'A' and 'B' one you keep in your premises the other elsewhere and you regularly swap them over.

i.e. you back up your internal drive to external 'A' which you store in say a safety deposit box, storage locker a relation/friends garage, and use 'B' i.e. backup internal and subsequent files to it until you think its time to swap them over.

This last scenario is similar to a commercial protocol but it's still only cost you time and the price of two external hard drives

Equipment Failure

What about equipment failure? ... you are unlikely to buy two computers just in case one fails but what if it does?

What contingency plans do you have in place ?
How long can you afford to wait? even if you have a maintenance contract/insurance it's likely to be a couple of days, do they loan comparable equipment as part of the service?

If you upgrade your computer is it worth selling the one you are replacing? could it be a kept as a back up?

Do you have a friend or colleague who uses a similar machine to you.

If you are getting a laptop as well as your desktop you can reduce the impact of machine failure on your productivity.

Check out the Archiving pages which show a few options that I use.