Every single year computers become increasingly important in our lives. Most of us don’t even realize how important they really are until our hard drive crashes. We use our family computer for all sorts of important things, taxes, addresses, a calendar, medical information, and our budget. If you don’t have all of those files properly backed up than there is a real chance that you will lose all of that information when your hard drive crashes.

Create Backup Files

Most companies have figured out that the best way to prevent their data from being lost and to cut back on the cost of data recovery. Instead of having to pay a computer technician to recover lost data files all they have to pay for is repairing the damaged hard drive. The average company insists that their employees create a backup of their computer files at least once a day. This is a really good habit for you to get into even if the only files you have on your personal computer pertain to your household budget.

Traditionally the best way to back up your data files has been to copy your files to a disk. The problem with this method for backing up your data files is that it isn’t fool proof. I’ve created back up CD’s that my computers were unable to read. Another problems is storing the CD’s, if you have several files that you need to backup that means that you are going to be using a lot of CD’s and all of these CD’s take up a lot of room in your office. Even if you have enough room to store the CD’s there is always the chance that they will be damaged and that you won’t be able to recover your data files.

Other traditional methods for creating backup files include the use of external hard drives, flash drives, and servers, and DVDs.

The Advantage of Offsite Storage

The difficultly of finding a safe place to store backup CD’s has created a growing interest in offsite storage options. The thing that most companies like best about offsite storage is that the backup files aren’t in their office and/or home. By not having the files in their home or office keeps your data files safe from fires, floods, and thieves.

Most offsite storage places have a system that allows their clients to go online and access their data files. This means that when you need to review a file, you don’t have to worry about driving clear across town just to pick up a CD. You just need to log onto your account and pull type in the name of the file you need. Most people claim that this is faster than trying to find where they stored the CD in their office.

Setting up offsite storage for your data files is usually very simple and fast. Once you have completed the setup process you can relax and be confident that your important data files are always going to be protected and that you will never have to worry about data recovery again.

It is normal to experience a moment of intense panic when you turn on your computer only to find that your hard drive is no longer working. Chances are pretty good that instead of wondering why your hard drive has suddenly crashed you are more concerned about all of the data that you had on your computer that you haven’t quite gotten around to properly backing up.

It doesn’t take most of us very long to figure out that the best way to avoid the stress of constantly worrying about the loss of data do to hard drive failure is to make sure that we regularly back up our computer files. The most common way of backing up our data files is to copy the files to a CD-ROM, although more and more of us are using a flash drive to back up files that we are still working on.

Backing up Your Files

The best way to protect your data files is to make sure that you create a back up copy of your files. Most companies require that their employees to save whatever they are working on to their hard drive several times a day and than at the end of the day, before turning off their computer for the day, the employee has to create a back up of all their data files.

The problem that some of us have run into is that, even though we though we were being smart by burning our important files to a CD-ROM is that when we insert the CD into our computer to open the file, we learn that for some reason the file either doesn’t exist or is corrupted.

The best way that I have found to make sure that my files are still available is to e-mail my important data files to myself. I simply attach whatever file I need backed up to an email and send it to myself. Not only is the file backed up and safe, I can access the file on any computer I happen to be working on, provided I have internet access.

Hard Drive Failure

If your hard drive does fail and you have not yet had a chance to back up your files, all is not lost. All you have to do is to take your computer to a certified computer technician and ask them to recover your lost data from your hard drive before they repair the problem.

If you suspect that your hard drive is getting ready to crash you should back up all of your current data files and shut your computer off right away. The faster you get your computer to a professional computer tech the less damage your hard drive will sustain.

If you use a computer, you should really make an effort to backup all of your files. When you are on your computer and working on a file you should back up the file that you are working on every fifteen minutes. When you are finished working and preparing to shut off your computer you should backup your entire file to your backup system. Traditionally the way the average person has always used to backup their important data files has been to copy the file to a CD, but recently there has been an increase in people using online methods for data backup.

If you have never thought about using an online method for backing up your data files you should take a few minutes to consider the advantages.

The Advantages of Online Data Storage

One of the best things about online backup is that you can access the files from anywhere and at anytime. This is especially nice if you need to access a work file during a period of time when your office is closed and you are working on your personal computer

People who regularly use an online storage method for their important data files love the fact that they can access the files from any computer. This is really handy when your own computer is in the shop or if you use multiple computers.

Sometimes when you store a computer file to a CD you aren’t able to make any changes to the file. You can open the file and view the information but if you need to amend the file you have to download the information to your hard drive and than burn a new copy of the file to a different CD. When you use an online storage method you can always make changes to your files.

It’s a really good feeling to know that even if your hard drive crashes and burns your files are not only safe but that you can get to them easily on a different computer.

The Downside to Online Data Storage

The biggest drawback to online data backup is that if order to access your files you have to be able to connect to the internet. If you know that you are going to need to access on of your data files and suspect that you aren’t going to be able to connect to the internet than you should make sure that you have copied the file to a CD or flash drive and make sure that you tuck the backup in your computer bag. Make sure that your disk in a case to protect it from scratches and dust.

No doubt you have heard about solid state drives (commonly abbreviated, SSD). So you might be wondering what are they and is it important that I get one. Well in basic terms a solid state drive is exactly what the name implies, a hard drive that carries no moving parts. A regular hard drive is made up of a bunch of disks (about the size of compact disks) that spin at high speeds (average between 5400rpm and 7200rpm) which allows you to store information as well as read and write to the device. On the other hand a solid state drive carries none of these moving parts.

Advantages

Now the advantages of a solid state drive can be great or not so great depending on what your requirements are. Generally speaking, it’s harder for your information to be lost on a solid state drive because it carries no moving parts, thus if you should drop your device (in this case a netbook, notebook or desktop), your hard drive will still be in tact. Another advantage is the fact that solid state drives use less power and so are much better for power consumption in mobile systems (like netbooks and notebooks) then regular hard disk drives (HDD). Since the SSD use RAM like memory modules to store its information, the battery does not have to work very hard to keep spinning the hard disks it would have to do had it been a regular hard disk drive.

Another great advantage is the speed of SSD’s. They are much faster because their technology is similar to random access memory (RAM) in that they can be written to and from fairly fast. Last but not least SSD’s are smaller in size then regular HDD and so can hold more information in a smaller amount of space.

Disadvantages

Now as usual with any type of technology there are a few disadvantages that one might want to take into consideration before purchasing said thing. Dealing with SSD’s the major drawback is price. Since the technology is pretty new (at least to the consumer public) it is quite expensive. You can pay round about $2-300.00 on a 320-680GB HDD for your desktop or notebook. On the other hand most SSD’s double in price for their equivalent in a regular hard disk format. For instance if you were to buy that same amount of space on an SSD you would have to be willing to pay nearly or in excess of $1,000 (600+GB = $1,000).

Another major drawback is the “bugginess” of a lot of SSD that are on the market. As I said before the technology is pretty new on the consumer front and just like any new technology, bugs and troubles always follow. Without calling names, many manufacturers have been plagued with problems such as their SSD loosing space over time due to firmware problems. More importantly sometimes fixes are not available in a timely fashion.

Another problem is the sheer performance upgrade and speed of most computers is quite minimal, and unless you are a power user you will not notice any major differences in performance. In fact if you’re reading this article chances are you won’t need an SSD for performance reasons. In terms of battery life, it would be cheaper in most cases to buy another battery of the same size or an extended one then installing an SSD on your laptop or buying one with the option as it would be less expensive.

Conclusion

So here is my proposition. Unless you are filthy rich, or you are a computer power user you might want to think twice before getting yourself one. But if you are clumsy and prone to drop your system then you might want to consider going with an SSD for data protection. Speaking of which, your best option in that case would be to combine an SSD with a ruggedized notebook so you’re not just securing one component, but the whole system.

As I have said many times before, the best thing to do is to wait a few years before adopting a new technology because if you do wait, you will save yourself headache and money as the prices of anything in the technology field always go down and never up.

The Iomega StorCenter ix2 1TB (2HD x 500GB ) and 2 TB (2HD x 1000GB) is a network attached storage solution for small office networks. The StorCenter ix2 is a cost effective solution for data protection or increasing network storage capacity.

This Storage Area Network hard drive offers RAID 1 (Mirroring) and JBOD (Just A Bunch of Disks) options. The dual drives setup with RAID 1 provide data redundancy in the case of disk drive failure. The JBOD features allow the two hard drives to be merged. JBOD storage is the combined total of the two drives in contrast to Raid 0 which is the 2x the size of the smaller hard drive. With hard drive failure, in the JBOD configuration, only data on the failed hard drive is lost. RAID 1 is a better choice for backup and JBOB offers more storage capacity.

Other features include backup software, virus encryption technology, Bluetooth upload, security camera support and UPnP and DLNA media device capabilities. The drive also has a built in media server that allows listening, viewing and accessing files from any compatible device on the network.

Setting up the drive is easy with the included CD and four-click set-up. One year standard service is included and extended Silver service is available. . The Iomega StorCenter ix2 supports PC, Mac and Linux clients.

1TB Iomega StorCenter ix2 (2HD x 500GB )	2TB Iomega StorCenter ix2 (2HD x 1000GB )