If you're an average computer user, you will probably lose 40 hr of work to damaged and lost files this year. But how you spend this time and whether it affects your ability to deliver products to your customers is your choice. Establishing a data-backup procedure can protect you from data loss and related side effects such as high blood pressure and a receding hairline. (And no, I am not interested in updating the photo at the head of this column!)
Today, some hard drives claim reliability of up to 300,000 hr (that's more than 34 years) average time between failures. But while computer storage is more reliable than ever, plenty of things can cause files to go astray.
On one of my systems, I estimate that I write about 5 gigabytes (GB) of data to the hard drive every month. However, there is no way to tell what the amount of data handled really is when just about every application I use writes temporary files during processing.
Some applications are notoriously fragile about their internal structure, damaging themselves during normal use (or at least what the operator thinks is normal use). PageMaker documents, for example, can become corrupted over time. I have some 10-MB PageMaker files that I have been updating and modifying regularly for several years, and these files are most at risk.
One preventive step is to turn on the Autosave feature in any application that has it. Or perhaps I should say turn on Autosave unless the process is so slow that it completely disrupts the flow of work, which is likely with large files on programs such as CorelDRAW! There aren't really enough programs that offer the Autosave feature, but it seems to be a growing trend.
If you have the option of automatically saving data in *.BAK files, use it. If the file you most recently saved becomes damaged, the latest BAK version of the file can be renamed and is probably still usable. For example, if you are working on JOB001.CDR in CorelDRAW!, as soon as you save the file a second time, you will see JOB001.BAK appear in the directory. This is, in fact, the best approach to backing up files in CorelDRAW!, and unlike the Autosave function, it doesn't affect the time it takes to save a file. This option is also frequently offered in accounting and financial packages, where you better have an extremely good reason not to use it!
Save your files under new names regularly during the creation process. When you get to a critical point in a graphic-design file, such as having the entire job mapped out and the base color established, save the file under a new name in the same directory. So if your original file was JOB001.CDR, save it as JOB001A.CDR after you complete a major design step and as JOB001B, JOB001C, etc., after completing subsequent steps. On very complex jobs, this procedure can save you a great deal of time if a file is damaged. It's also useful if your progress no longer pleases you since you can go back to an earlier point in your design and alter subsequent steps. This method allows you to backtrack through your creation steps far more easily than by using multiple Undo commands. But saving your file under multiple names will cost you some disk space.
Which reminds me, never run low on disk space. It can be traumatic beyond belief to run out of space on a compressed disk drive, and it can raise reliability and speed issues even with an uncompressed drive. When space is limited, there certainly will be much more file fragmentation, and your disk operations will slow. Hard-drive performance may also become less reliable. The minimum free hard-disk space that you should maintain is about 10% of the total drive capacity. Leave more space on smaller drives.
To prevent your hard drive from filling up quickly, make sure than after completing a job, you delete all the temporary files you created (i.e., JOB001, JOB001A, JOB001B, etc.). Also delete the BAK files that the program automatically created.
These data-backup practices, which cost very little in time or money, are ideal for dealing with files that are lost or corrupted during creation or modification. But you need to consider other means to prepare for complete disk failures.
I don't recommend the DOS utility as a complete backup solution. Few computer users will actually back up to floppy diskettes since single graphic files can often fill multiple diskettes. But a DOS backup utility is better than nothing, and the price is right.
If you have time during the month (or week, or whatever the natural rhythm of your shop is) to keep up with a DOS backup routine, it's a good investment--especially if you have two sets of backup diskettes and keep one of them off site for added protection. For those of you who have the perseverance and discipline to establish and maintain such a backup routine, please stand up and take a bow! I tend not to trust floppies for anything important for any length of time, and I don't have the patience to repeatedly use the backup utility.
If you are operating over a network, there are a couple of fast and painless ways to deal with backups. Yes, they require that a certain amount of disk space on the network be dedicated to the backups. But the odds of both your local hard drive and network drive crashing at the same time is very low, unless your entire shop is destroyed in a cataclysm of some sort.
The easiest way to back up with a network is to write a small batch file that uses the DOS XCOPY command to make an exact copy of the files currently on your local drive. Assuming that your files are on your C: drive in the CLIENT directory (with each client having its own subdirectory, such as C:\CLIENT\BAKER for Baker Industries), and further assuming that you have access to network drive N:, the following batch file would completely copy your files to a directory named BACKUP on N:
C:
CD \CLIENT
N:
CD \BACKUP
XCOPY C: /E/S
Use any text editor or word processor to create a similar batch file, save it as a text file named BACKUP.BAT, and run it on your way out to lunch two or three times a week.
From the Macintosh, I use the exact same strategy and simply drag the "Van's Clients" folder from my Quadra onto the "BACKUP" folder on the server.
Another approach for PCs uses less disk space on the server, but requires some experience with the shareware compression program PKZIP. Using PKZIP, you can place a compressed copy of everything in the CLIENT directory and all subdirectories into a single file, which will be called BACKUP.ZIP. A batch file to run this backup procedure on a network might look like this:
N:
CD \BACKUP
C:
CD \CLIENT
PKZIP -u -p -r N:\BACKUP *.*
The -u option forces PKZIP to update the ZIP file rather than copying everything every time. The -p and -r options maintain your directory names in the destination archive so that you don't need to sort files by name and don't risk overwriting duplicate file names (a real risk with the eight-character limit on DOS file names). This batch file could be edited to suit your situation and saved as a text file called ZIPBACK.BAT, which you could run frequently to protect your files. I use Stuffit on the Macintosh to create similar archives on the server from my Macintosh art directories.
Backing up data to your network server with a backup utility, a compressed ZIP file, or the methods described for Macintosh users all provide fast, painless, and inexpensive protection. I use all these procedures on my machines regularly. But after awhile, you are bound to run out of room on your network server, which could make the procedures useless. True, these backup methods could also be used if you have two hard drives on your computer and you run the routines from one drive to the other. But it seems to me that this option offers less protection than sending the files to a completely separate machine.
Another alternative is to equip your system with a removable media drive, such as a Syquest or Bournoulli drive. You can then use the backup routines to save your data to the drive and remove it for storage.
If you use any of these procedures, you probably will want to do some housekeeping beforehand. The last thing you want to do is back up 20 MB of CorelDRAW! or Photoshop temporary files!
The best backup solution of all, and probably the easiest after you make the investment and set it up, is a tape backup unit. I use a digital audio tape (DAT) drive on the Macintosh for my primary backup of both Macintosh and PC files. (All of my computers are on the same network.) I have 400 MB of data in two partitions on the main drive of my network server and 250 MB of data on the Macintosh. I back all of this up to a DAT cartridge that holds 1.3 GB (that's 1300 MB) of data. The DAT can actually hold more backup files than would fit on a 1.3-GB drive because of the way that data is organized on tape. I use Retrospect backup software to run the tape unit from the Macintosh and I back up each partition on the network server, as well as the Macintosh's internal drive, to a tape. I have two sets of tapes and keep one of them off site. The capacity of a tape cartridge is high enough that I have backup tapes containing files that were erased from my disk drives over a year ago.
You can buy a tape unit with a smaller storage capacity (and a lower cost), but I strongly recommend against it. The likelihood that you'll want to perform a complete backup of your hard drive increases dramatically when your entire drive can be backed up on a single tape. This way, the backup session can be started and left to run by itself. But because a backup tape may contain files that are no longer found on the hard drive, the tape's storage capacity needs to be greater than that of the hard drive. Further, because backup units are fairly expensive, you will want to choose one with a capacity to handle your next computer rather than your current one. My rule of thumb is this: Buy a tape drive with a capacity equal to twice the size of the hard drive you expect to use on your next computer.
To save money, my friend Joel and I bought the tape unit together for $1300. We swap it every month. Our system works like this: After receiving the tape unit and my off-site set of backup cartridges from Joel, I immediately back everything up. About a month later I back up to the second set of tapes and return the drive (and the second set of tapes) to Joel. He immediately backs up his system and follows my same routine. If I discover that I need a file while he has the tape unit, he restores my missing file to his system, and I get it back by modem. Since we both have one complete set of backup cartridges at each location, we're safely backed up on all our files dating back almost two years (unless both my office and Joel's house burn to the ground). And we can still fit a lot more data on those tapes.
By the way, the same tape unit we bought two years ago is now available from APS for $799. If you're interested in finding out more about the models they offer, call APS at 800-443-4199.
Yes, I have a certain amount of hard disk space devoted to backups of critical current files. (It would be insane not to back up all of your Windows setup files in some way, considering how much time it can take to rebuild them!) And I did spend some money on my half of the tape drive. But since I've established these backup routines, I sleep easier and my blood pressure is probably lower. Unfortunately, my hairline is still receding, but that's from old age rather than screaming fits brought on by missing or damaged files.