for Dec. 10, 2003

Hi, All;

This week: An elegant backup solution

During the course of my writing this column, I have emphasized the need for backing up your data, and your friendly, helpful publisher of this paper has come up with a very nifty backup solution. What Dave uses is an external USB (Universal Serial Bus) enclosure and a hard drive of the same size as the drive you are backing up. I helped install this solution on a client's PC this last week and was impressed at how easy it installed and how easy it was to backup the hard drive. If the external drive is as big as your PC's drive, a simple copy from hard drive to hard drive gives you a full hard drive backup for easy restore. One advantage of this system is that Windows uses the external hard drive as "removable," and this means you can remove the hard drive from the PC so you can take the hard drive and store it off site to keep the current backup safe. One does have to remember to bring the external hard drive back on a regular basis to keep the backup current. So what does this solution cost? Dave has found an enclosure and hard drive for around $120.00, and I have a catalog with a complete unit starting for $150.00. Yes, that is kind of expensive, but how much would it cost to rebuild lost financial, email, or business data? I know many of us have CD or DVD writers, and they also work well for backup, as long as you know where all your data is stored on your hard drive and it gets backed up.

'Til next week, (ComputerFAQ#168)

Robert

 

Please send your questions to

Dec. 10, 2003 Backing Up using an external USB Hard Drive

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Oct. 15, 2003 Fall Cleanup Part 2

Oct. 8, 2003 Fall Cleaning of Your PC

Oct. 1, 2003 Explanation of DSL

Sept. 24, 2003 Installing DSL at the Shopper

Sept. 17, 2003 What New Computer Should I Buy? Part 2

Sept. 10, 2003 What New Computer Should I Buy?

Sept. 3, 2003 Protecting from Viruses and Worms

Aug. 27, 2003 Current Viruses "Bast Worm" and "Sobig"

Aug. 20, 2003 Does Microsoft Password Make Changing Passwords Easier?

Aug. 13, 2003 Passwords and Passport Part 2

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July 23 & 30, 2003 Where Are Microsoft Passport Passwords Stored? and More About Passport and Passwords

July 16, 2003 Internet Explorer Helpful Hint Part 2

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July 05, 2000 Introduction to ComputerFAQ

July 12, 2000 Computer Definitions

July 26, 2000 More Computer Definitions

August 02, 2000 Defining Bits, Bytes and Hex

August 09, 2000 Internet Service Providers (ISP)

August 16, 2000 Backup up your PC

August 23, 2000 Backup Devices.

August 30, 2000 What is the slowest PC for Internet Access

September 06, 2000 PC Nomenclature

September 13, 2000What to do with Mail Attachements.

September 20, 2000What Happens at boot up

October 04, 2000Desktop Areas

October 18, 2000Start Button

October 25, 2000Display Made Bigger

November 01, 2000 More Monitor Controls

November 15, 2000 Right Click Display Menu

November 22, 2000 More on Desktop Menus

November 29, 2000 More on Desktop Menus

December 06, 2000 Desktop Properties Menu - part 1

December 13, 2000 Desktop Properties Menu - part 2

December 20, 2000 Desktop Properties Menu - part 3