Full Disclosure: Backing Up--Still Hard to Do

Everybody needs a backup strategy. Here's mine.

Click here to see additional columns by Contributing Editor Stephen Manes. He has been writing about technology for two decades.

Backing up your computer has always been a maddening process--which is why so few people do it. Not that many years ago, I stored precious data on "state of the art" tape cartridges even though the lousy hardware, media, and software assured absolutely nothing. Colleagues would scream in desperation on discovering that their backup tapes were unreadable.

Things are only slightly better now. The culprits are much the same: slow hardware, media that don't hold enough data, and baffling, untrustworthy software. One program I recently sampled reported that a backup to CD-R would require eight discs--even after I reduced the backup set to a single file. That didn't make me feel warm and fuzzy--or secure.

Microsoft still gives backup the back of its hand. Backup software is supposedly buried on the Windows XP Home CD, but you may not find it if your hardware vendor gives you the usual "recovery" disc instead of a full-blown copy of the OS. The Windows Registry's very existence complicates backing up, and Microsoft's applications don't help: Outlook Express opens every one of its files whether you use it or not, and Outlook creates an endlessly growing data file. You end up wasting time and media by backing up data that isn't really new.

But as important as backing up is, there's no one right strategy. Various utilities let you create an image of your entire drive, but that takes so long you won't do it often. Quicker incremental backups involve only files that have changed, but they generally won't restore a dead drive. With backups that are bigger than the capacity of removable media, you have to hang around to feed extra discs into the drive. Hard-drive mirroring seems smart until a disk controller fails and writes bogus data to two places at once.

Nontechnical issues are just as crucial. How carefully will you label your ever-growing backup of precious digital photos? What happens in a catastrophe (your home or office going up in flames)?

My strategy: Focus on making sure that truly important stuff--documents and e-mail--gets backed up daily. Every time I shut down my machine, an incremental backup automatically travels the Net to Connected.com's system at the other end of the country. True, home connections are generally far slower at uploading than downloading, but after the first upload, Connected is smart about transferring only what's new or different. And it lets my notebook retrieve files that I forgot to take with me on the road.

Connected doesn't want you to store giant audio or video files on its system. And if you use its password encryption and forget your code, you won't get your data back. Still, over the past couple of years, Connected has saved me far more than the $15 a month it charges.

But when it comes to system and application software, I work without a net. If the disk dies, I'll probably spend a day or two downloading patches and resetting preferences, and I might even have to shell out a few bucks for lost software upgrade codes. Nevertheless, by the time the Big Crash occurs, I might just decide to go out and buy a new machine. My gamble insures that I don't waste time and money up front.

Your gamble may be different. I repeat: When it comes to backup, there are no right answers. But not doing anything about it is definitely the wrong one.