When I say there are two types of hard drives, I am referring to:
• Those that have failed and
• Those that will!!!
All hard drives WILL fail.
The hard drive is the most volatile and fragile component in your computer. It is really the only moving part in your machine that can wear out. Sure, there are fans, and optical drives that have some moving parts, but when those parts fail, you simply replace them and move on. The hard drive is where you store all of your data… Your documents, your precious family digital pictures, your digital music library and other very important and irreplaceable files can all be lost in an instant when your hard drive fails.
Depending on the type of failure, you may get lucky and get a second chance at pulling the data off of the drive, but all too often, getting your files back involves sending your drive off to a Data Recovery Specialist, the cost of which starts at $1000.00 and quickly increases depending on the size of your drive and the amount of work required to extract your data.
There is only one way to avoid the panic that ensues when you go to turn on your hard drive and get the dreaded ‘Boot Device Not Found’ error message.
BACKUP!!!
The 3, 2, 1 Rule
Industry experts recommend the 3, 2, 1 rule when it comes to backup…
3 – Keep at least 3 copies of any file that is important to you
• Experts suggest that if you do not have at least 3 copies of a file, then you do not have that file at all. There are many factors that can render a file unusable from file corruption to user error and accidental deletion.
2 – Use at least 2 different types of media to store your files on
• No one can predict the future of technology. What is a common media for backup today may become obsolete tomorrow. For instance, floppy disks were a popular media for backing up files 10 years ago, but just try to find a computer on the market today that has a floppy drive built in. Same with Zip Disks and Tape drives. It’s recommended to use multiple types of media such as CD/DVD’s , external hard drives and cloud (online) backup.
1 – In more than 1 location
• At the very least, you should have a local backup, usually with the use of an external hard drive or use of CD/DVD’s or USB Thumb drives. Keeping these backups local makes it quick and easy to retrieve files when something goes wrong. But what if the worst happens. A fire, flood or natural disaster destroys your home. When these disasters happen, they usually destroy your computer and your backups at the same time. So it is also great practice to take one of your ‘3’ copies offsite. Take it to work, mail it to a friend or family member or use one of the many cloud backup services available on the internet.
There are so many ways to backup your data on the market today, many of which are extremely simple to use, that there are no more excuses. Everybody should be backing up there data. I will talk about two methods that are inexpensive and so easy, any computer user can use.
Local Backup
External hard drives are becoming so inexpensive that they are the most cost effective method of backing up your files. There are two general sizes available,
• 2.5” - also referred to as ‘Portable’. These drives generally do not require an additional power cord as they are powered by plugging them into the USB port on your computer. This makes it much easier to move the drive about to backup multiple computers in your home or network. It also makes it easy to store it in an offsite location, such as a Bank Safe Deposit Box.
• 3.5” - also referred to as ‘Desktop Drives’. These drives are quite a bit larger and do require an additional power cord to be plugged in. These come in much larger capacity sizes and are generally meant to be permanently placed on your desk for uninterrupted scheduled backups.
• Also available are USB Thumb drives, also referred to as jump drives, or flash drives. These are great for portability if you use certain files on multiple computers or want to share files with family members or co-workers. They are not recommended for backup purposes, as they are very small and easy to misplace or lose. They are also much more expensive, relatively speaking, than the external hard drives mentioned earlier.
One of the simplest external hard drives available for backing up your files is the ClickFree
Backup Drives. Simply plug the drive in the USB port and software will automatically run, searching your computer for files that will be backed up. It will automatically search out documents, photos, quicken files, music and other media, plus you can also manually select other files to back up. They come in both the portable and desktop variety as mentioned above, as well as a converter cable you can use with an external hard drive you already have, and smaller solid state devices you can carry in your wallet. You can fine ClickFree devices at a discount at Amazon.com Cloud (Online) Backup
There are quite a few online services that offer cloud storage. Many will offer free service for a limited amount of storage and then charge a monthly/yearly fee for more space, up to unlimited.
• Carbonite – http://www.carbonite.com/ - Probably one of the most common online backup services. At 54.95 per year, per computer for an unlimited amount of storage space, it installs a small program on your computer which searches your system for files to be backed up, then sends it up to their servers for storage and, if needed, later retrieval. The program also places a small colored dot next to the files indicating whether the file has been backed up or is scheduled to be backed up.
• Mozy – http://www.mozy.com/ – Essentially the same as Carbonite, but they do offer a free account with up to 2GB of storage, or unlimited at $4.95/month or $54.45/year giving 1 free month.
• Jungle Disk – http://www.jungledisk.com/ – Starting at just $2/month, maybe the most flexible solution. Jungle Disk charges you by the amount of space you use, so if you only have a few gigabytes of files to back up, Jungle Disk may be for you.
Replace Your Drives
In addition, every computer should have the hard drive replaced once every 3-4 years, especially notebook hard drives. The older a drive gets the more likely it is facing failure, not to mention decreased performance causing your computer to seem slower over time, and corruption of files. Any computer repair service can safely move your system over to a new drive in a matter of a couple of hours.
Google recently conducted a study on the life of hard drives used in their servers. The results are rather stunning. For example, in drives older than 2 years, Google reports seeing about a 7% failure rate per year.
Put another way, one out of every 14 drives will fail within a year. And the failure rates rise sharply after that.
Many computer users don’t get the ‘Backup Religion’ until a hard drive failure happens to them and they are faced with the cost of Data Recovery, or the complete loss of everything
they had on their computer.
Don’t let it happen to you. No matter how you accomplish it, just get it done. Backing up has been made so much easier for the user, there really are no more excuses.
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