Backup, Backup, Backup, Podcast #2 (See Video Here)

OK. You have a computer. Perhaps two or three. Maybe more. You’ve got data scattered across all of your PC’s or Macs and you have sworn to yourself that one day, some day you will back up all of your data. The only challenge is that either the planets don’t align properly or you haven’t got a plan for your backup. It’s just one of those things that we don’t pay allot of attention to. Until, we lose invaluable information that you can never recover. Sure, then hind-site is always 20/20.

Hard drive storage is so cheap now that there is absolutely no excuse not to have one, two or three terrabyte hard drives around your house, business or even your car. Here is what I do. I listen to Leo Laporte on this subject, and he claims that you need the 1,2,3 rule. One copy of your information on your hard drive. One copy on some kind of external source, such as an external USB or Firewire drive, and one copy that must go offsite in case there is (god forbid) a flood, fire, hurricane or other disaster that can interrupt your life and livelihood.

When I was a computer technician in the field, there were horror stories of people losing their e-mail lists, spreadsheets, financial documents, pictures, data management systems and more because they thought they had perfectly good back ups. Click here to read an excellent article from Freelance Switch on backups. I use an external one terrabyte USB hard drive in my podcast studio. Using the same method as Leo Laporte uses, I manually copy and paste my most important files over to the drive, then, burn them onto dvd’s and have my wife take the dvd copy to the bank and put it in the safety deposit box whenever she needs to, which is once per month.

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Lets talk about failing hard drives. Will you have enough time to save your data? Take a look at this article.
There is a great software program by Steve Gibson called ‘Spinright’. I have personally never had to use spinright, but from all of the research I have done, this would be the only hard drive maintenance software I would every use. And yes, it is on my things to purchase. In this informative video, Steve tells you exactly why you really should use Spinright for your hard drives before you run into trouble.

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Here is another suggestion to keep your drives running trouble free longer. I am an electronics technician, and, as a technician have seen more damage to electronics from heat than any other source. Thats why I always insist on running extra cooling on the processor, and especially attempt to run more air movement toward the drive whenever I can. Heat is a killer of computers. Proper air flow is absolutely critical

More and more folks are purchasing notebook computers. They can suffer from heat saturation because, as cases get smaller and processors as well as ram and hard disk size increases, heat can overwhelm the system quite easily. Do yourself a huge favor and go out to purchase a notebook cooler that has fans underneath it to cool your notebook. I never, ever use my notebook without a cooler. Here is a link to various notebook coolers. Click here to view the link to the belkin cooler I personally use.

My wife just bought a Logiix notebook cooler, and let me tell you, I am so very impressed by this product that I give it two thumbs up. Its made out of aluminum, so it won’t crush down after several months. It has two fans for great air circulation, and the fans are incredibly quiet.

On my desktop machines, air circulation is again critical. If you can, put good quality, high air flow fans on the case and do not block any of the air circulation vents on the PC. Click here for some suggestions on case fans. Below are some comments from the web site on PC cooling.

((PC COOLING PRODUCTS
One of the deadliest threats to your personal computer or notebook is heat! Today’s processors and video cards use smaller and smaller technologies running at faster and faster speeds. The result is ever greater amounts of waste heat. Without the right kinds of computer cooling, heat can destroy your high speed computer. Ever computers fresh out of the box can benefit from improved case fans and CPU processor fans. By upgrading your computer cooling system you can have cooler systems and dramatically extend the reliable life of your computer. In many cases you can even improve the performance of your computer by cooling – memory and processors can run faster when cool. Manufacturers such as: Kingwin, Masscool by Fanner Tech, ThermalTake, Ultra, and others, make a wide variety of accessories for computer cooling that make cooler systems.))

Perhaps its just luck, but I don’t ever recall ever having to replace one of my hard drives in any of my machines ever since I bought my first computer. Just ask my wife. I’m a little bit of a freak when it comes to cooling my equipment. In my car, I even have an oil cooler for the engine that can cool a motor home up to 30,000 pounds. Am I obsessed with heat? You bet I am. I used to have my desktop computer in a walk in closet, took the sides off, and placed a 12 inch heavy duty fan inches away from the processor, ram chips, motherboard and hard drive and worked that PC for over 6 full years, not turning it off for one second without a hiccup. (OK, I fibbed. It turned it off a few times to vacuum it out and re-seat all of the electronics) Thus proving my theory. Keep it cool, and you can keep your data.