12-21-2010, 11:49 AM
It's past time for people (if your computer is important to you) to get religion about backups, and more precisely, disk images. Having spent much of my career running desktop support programs at a major university and other businesses, I can't possibly count on my fingers and toes the number of times equipment dies, and it's often senior management who are most dependent on it. Most of us don't have the luxury of owning hot spares for everything, so there are some key strategies to use.
External hard drives -- USB or Firewire, with a gig of space and actually try to restore something to ensure your backups are good. Rotating hardware for backups is also good as that gives you multiple choices of what to go back to if needed. BTW, the drives are cheap, and as they suffer failures, the multiples being rotated give you the best chance for a full recovery.
Disk Imaging/Backup software -- we use SuperDuper for our Mac, but there are many.
Good work habits -- USE the above items regularly.
Windows machines -- AV (anti-virus), malware, and such, and do the system updates regularly, but a few days after release. System Restore points are a life-saver.
If you've the luxury of a backup computer, keep it up to date and functioning! Use it and don't expect it to work if its been stuffed on a shelf untouched for a year.
Cool local company for Mac support: Tropic Mac!
Purchase extended support for your computers -- NO company uses anything but cheap components. I wouldn't walk out of the Apple Store without Applecare. Didn't used to be that way, but quality of components has gone down everywhere. $199 is cheap for an extra 2 years!
Jane
External hard drives -- USB or Firewire, with a gig of space and actually try to restore something to ensure your backups are good. Rotating hardware for backups is also good as that gives you multiple choices of what to go back to if needed. BTW, the drives are cheap, and as they suffer failures, the multiples being rotated give you the best chance for a full recovery.
Disk Imaging/Backup software -- we use SuperDuper for our Mac, but there are many.
Good work habits -- USE the above items regularly.
Windows machines -- AV (anti-virus), malware, and such, and do the system updates regularly, but a few days after release. System Restore points are a life-saver.
If you've the luxury of a backup computer, keep it up to date and functioning! Use it and don't expect it to work if its been stuffed on a shelf untouched for a year.
Cool local company for Mac support: Tropic Mac!
Purchase extended support for your computers -- NO company uses anything but cheap components. I wouldn't walk out of the Apple Store without Applecare. Didn't used to be that way, but quality of components has gone down everywhere. $199 is cheap for an extra 2 years!
Jane