Ultimate backup

Let's face it; if you asked someone where you should store all your critical data and years of personal photos the LAST place they would recommend is on a yacht at sea. We backup our photos, videos, and other important data onto DVDs and keep a set in the abandon ship bag. When we have visitors we send a set of critical files home. Microsoft has just announced a free online storage service called Sky Drive (see skydrive.live.com). You get 500MB of Free secure storage online which seems great. The only problem is getting the data up there with the internet connections speeds we typically find out here.

What about Windows backup?

I like disk cloning rather than storing backups in disk images. A disk image is a compressed file that includes all your files stored in a compact format. If you lose a file or disk you'll need to extract the data from the image onto a new disk prior to having access to the files. To maintain this system you'll need three disks; the one you are currently using, a backup disk, and a new one to extract the image to in the event of a failure of the original. Synchronization doesn't support comparison of data stored within the compressed disk images so you lose some of the flexibility of our recommended strategy. 

Back to Top