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	Monday, May 02, 2005

Protecting Your Data  ( the techdrivenlife) If you are like many of the people I know, you probably use a computer in the office, but also have a notebook or another 1 or 2 computers in the house.  The office computer is not a problem -- professional administrators protect and secure the network, makes sure it is running smoothly, and takes care to backup the necessary files religiously. The problem is your notebook computer or the one in your house.  People I know hold  a lot of personal data and software in these machines, and until recently, relied on the absolute reliability of their computers not failing, and dreading the day their hard disk may suddenly fail. Many use thumb drives (from 128 mb to 1 gig) and also have most of their data on it.  But when the crash day comes, you will be sure that many installed programs and many larger data ( like pictures or music files) otherwise not in the MyDocuments folder will be lost. What the person really wants to back up is not the few important megabytes but most of his files, which can easily be 5 to 20 gigabytes -- still not in the province of most thumb drives. I currently use an 40 gig mini hard disk connected through a USB2.0 external adapter ( cost -- less than $100) . It is as big as a small packet of cigarettes which makes it easy to carry along, and it is big enough to backup multiple computers, including store my music and picture files. If you run Windows 2000 or Windows XP, you will find on right clicking on the hard disk, that there is a Windows facility to backup the whole hard disk, including all your system files and configuration.  Of course, as personal users, we don't use backup tapes, and until recently, it was expensive to backup a hard disk so this program was hardly useful. But with advent of cheap and big hard disks with low priced enclosures, you may want to give this a try.   As a reader, tell me about your experience and the utility you use.  And also tell me if you are just relying on a prayer that your hard disk will continue to be alive and well.   6:19:06 PM     comment []   trackback []