As the reform movement’s use of computers increases, so does the importance of making regular backups of your key data. How effective would you be if your email, word processing documents and contact database were wiped out? How many hours would it take to rebuild that information from scratch?

Backing up your data regularly is vital insurance against a "data catastrophe." Unfortunately, this is a lesson that most people learn only from bitter experience. Developing a solid backup plan requires some investment of time and money, but the cost is far less than the often-impossible task of recreating data for which no backup exists!

There are two main strategies for backing up your data. The first strategy is to back up everything on each hard drive. This provides a very high level of security. For smaller offices and machines with smaller hard drives, this isn’t too dramatic. However, hard disk sizes (and file sizes) have been mushrooming, and for larger offices or organizations with lots of data, backing up everything can be an expensive and time-consuming proposition. However, backing up your entire hard disk means that if you ever have a crash, you can restore the entire contents of the drive in one easy process.

For typical users, most of the data on your hard disk consists of operating system files and major applications. These files are restorable from CD, especially on the Mac, and most of the time, it’s not absolutely necessary to back them up. At a practical level, backing up your email files, word processor files, databases, web bookmarks, and any other files you directly create will provide you with sufficient backups to make recovery possible in the event of a crash.

It’s a good idea to make at least two sets of backups—one "live" set that you have available in your office, and one set that you store in a secure off-site location such as a safety-deposit box. You should rotate the backups at least every week, so that you have a recent backup that is protected against fire, theft or some other site-specific disaster. Several health care reform groups have had their offices burgled in recent years, and we know of one group outside the region that nearly lost everything when their building burned (they didn't have off-site backups, but got very lucky). Routine off-site backups can help insure you against the loss of irreplaceable data in a natural or human disaster.

There is a wide variety of hardware that is potentially appropriate for small-to-medium office backup systems. This table summarizes some of the leading choices for backup hardware. Use it as a guide to help you select the hardware that best fits your organization's size, budget and backup needs.

When purchasing a backup device, think about the interface to the computer. SCSI drives are fastest, but can be difficult to install and require a SCSI card which may not be included (~$100). Internal EIDE drives are pretty quick, with USB devices a notch or two slower, but very easy to install. Parallel are slow but, like USB, easy to install. It is also important to get at least a one-year warranty, preferably with 24/7 technical support.

As you can see, there are lots of choices for backup hardware (and quite a few more that we didn't list here). The removable drive products are very fast, and generally less expensive to buy, but their media are quite sophisticated and thus relatively expensive. If you have lots of workstations (or lots of data) to back up, the cost of media may be prohibitive. This is the advantage of DAT drives; DAT tapes are inexpensive, making DAT the only practical choice for doing complete backups of several machines on a network.

Here are three sample backup scenarios appropriate to single or several standalone users, a small (3-7 person) network, and a larger office network.

A single user, or several people who are in the same office, but do not have a local area network (LAN) connecting their machines.

The Iomega Zip drive. The Zip drive is an inexpensive (<$200), easy to use drive that uses 100-250 MB disks that resemble floppies. These cartridges are fairly inexpensive and versatile. The Zip has many versions designed to attach to a PC or Mac any number of ways. The advantages of the Zip drive are that it is easy to attach to several different computers (especially the USB version), uses relatively inexpensive media, and holds enough data to easily back up most people’s personal files. The SCSI, USB and internal IDE models are fairly quick, the external parallel port models quite a bit slower.

Something else to consider is the fact that the Zip has been around for a while and has become something of standard in the low-end removable-media market. Many print service bureaus use Zip media to transfer/receive large desktop publishing files. If you need to exchange files with other people this way, the Zip might be a good choice. On the other hand, Iomega has garnered a reputation for low-quality customer support, and some people have experienced quality problems with Zip drives resulting in damaged disks and lost data.

A single user with a large amount of critical data to back up (such as someone doing intensive database or GIS work) might consider a OnStream Echo or Travan TR-4 drive, which have a multi-gigabyte storage capacity.

Macintosh: We recommend that you store all of your personal files in a single master folder and back that entire folder up each week by simply copying the file to your Zip drive. If you’d prefer to automate the process, or want the added security of backing up your entire hard disk, we recommend Retrospect Express ($50), from Dantz. Retrospect Express is a simple, inexpensive and powerful backup program that should meet all the needs of a single user or small office network.

PC: We recommend using Veritas Backup Exec Desktop ($60). Veritas Backup Exec desktop is a powerful and easy to use backup program that will help you manage your backups quite effectively. Some drives also ship with adequate backup software, often from Veritas. Another choice is the Windows version of Retrospect Express, similar in feature set and price. We also note that the backup software that comes with Zip disks, Iomega Backup, is much improved of late, and is freely downloadable from the Iomega Web site.

A Travan TR-4 or TR-5 format tape drive such as the Seagate TapeStor series of drives. These tape drives are relatively inexpensive and offer large storage capacities (up to 20GB on a single TR-5 tape). The OnStream ECHO drives are also a reasonable choice.

Networks that need to store many sets of backup data might choose to use DAT DDS-2 or DDS-3 drive. The hardware cost is a bit higher than for Travan drives, but the media is less expensive, longer lasting and faster.

A high-capacity removable cartridge drive such as the Castlewood Orb would also be a reasonable choice for organizations that frequently need immediate access to their data archives. Orb drives use 2.2 GB removable cartridges with capacities Cartridges cost about $40 each--rather expensive compared to the 2-4X larger $20-30 TR-4 tapes. Orb drives (particularly the SCSI and internal IDE models) are very fast, and thus more convenient than tape to access frequently, and can store much more information per cartridge than the Zip drive. However, they cannot compete with the high storage capacity or low media cost of tape backups.

Small offices may also consider investing in a CD-R or CD-RW drive to inexpensively archive old data to CDs. This is particularly effective for data that doesn't change after it's created, such as newsletters and photo archives. CD offers very low cost-per-megabyte archival storage, and CDs are both durable and easy to access (especially CD-Rs).

Macintosh: Retrospect Workgroup Backup ($270) is an appropriate choice for backing up a network of machines.

PC: Retrospect Workgroup Backup ($270) or Veritas Backup Exec Desktop Pro ($130) are reasonable choices. Retrospect offers more advanced functionality, but Veritas Backup Exec Desktop Pro works almost as well in a peer-to-peer environment, but doesn't support NT/2000 servers.

Offices with more than seven workstations, or with a Windows NT/2000 server, connected via an Ethernet LAN

Tape drives are the backup media of choice for networks larger than seven workstations. Although tape drives are slower than removable-cartridge hard drives, their media (tapes) is far cheaper than removable hard disk cartridges, making them the only affordable solution that allows multi-gigabyte backups. The two affordable tape choices are Travan and DAT.

Travan TR-5 format tape drive. A typical Travan TR5 format drive costs about $350 and can store up to 8 GB of compressed data on a single tape. Tapes cost about $40 each.

DAT DDS-2 or DDS-3 format tape drives are more expensive to purchase, typically in the $500-800 range, but their media (4mm DAT) are extremely inexpensive ($5-7 for a 4 GB cartridge, $10-20 for a 12/24 GB tape), making DAT a very cost-effective choice for doing regular full backups of all machines in a network. DAT tapes have also proven to be a bit more sturdy--lasting longer than Travan tapes.

Macintosh: Retrospect Workgroup Backup ($270), which is sometimes bundled with drive

PC: Retrospect Workgroup Backup ($270) is probably the best choice for a midsize office, as it offers highly manageable network backups. Veritas Backup Exec ($800) is higher-end software that has many features suitable for backing up NT/2000 servers that are doing more than just basic file sharing.

Six Key Backup Tips

1. Develop a backup plan: Identify the files you need to back up (both location and quantity), and determine how often you need to back up based on how much work you can afford to lose. Use this information to choose hardware and software that is appropriate to your needs.
2. Automate your backups: Backups are only useful if they get done regularly. Make sure your backup software can run its backup scripts automatically, and make sure that responsibility for monitoring their status is clearly assigned to someone within your organization.
3. Back up every machine: Every hard disk contains critical data so don't just back up servers. Make sure you include your laptops--they're easy to overlook, but just as important as your desktops.
4. Back up more than just documents: Don't limit backups to just your word processor files - you'll inevitably need something that wasn't backed up. Be sure to back up email and database files.
5. Keep a back up set offsite: You never know when a fire, flood, theft, or earthquake makes your offsite copy your only copy. You should create a backup set weekly and send the previous week's backup to a secure offsite location.
6. Test your backups BEFORE you need them: You need confidence in your backups. Make sure your backup software has full read-back verification. Try restoring a few files yourself, just in case.

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