DISASTER RECOVERY

DISASTER RECOVERY, ARE YOU PREPARED?

I know there are plenty of computers in homes that are 5-10 years old and haven't had one backup made. One day, those computers will have a terrible hard drive crash and lose all of their data.

"Data" can mean a variety of things to the computer owner, but when it comes to saving it the number one pick are photos. Why? digital cameras have no negatives to get reprints. Music is usually second, followed by typical word, excel-type files.

There are plenty of small footprint but large drive capacity external backup drives out there, and some users will buy them and actually make a backup, maybe even two backups - then forget about it.

In the Gulf coast of Texas we face many variables and I had a terrible thought one night: "What if we get our computers and backups stolen, or worse, a fire or Hurricane destroys the place - what good would my backups be then?"

I still backup my data, but I also use Carbonite, the online backup service. Naturally I wouldn't trust the security of anything that calls itself "The Cloud", but for pictures and music, I have no issues. Once you've done a backup, you can configure it to backup as necessary. Example No.1 - You haven't added or subtracted any files on your computer in two weeks, thus, no need to backup. Example No.2 - You just opened a word document and added a sentence or two, then saved it. Carbonite takes that file and replaces it with the older file in their "Cloud".

No, I don't get any kickbacks from Carbonite - I just know a good deal when I see one, and paying around $60/year to have my photo's and music safely backed up off-site, allows me to sleep a little better. How well are you sleeping tonight....?