Thread: Data Backup

You should back up your data every day. Lack of a system backup could cost you a couple of hours reinstalling Windows and your apps. But having no current data backup could mean losing irreplaceable family photos, your bank account information, or even your job.

For years Microsoft bundled lousy backup programs with Windows. Vista's backup utility improves on that, but it by much; you can back lip files by type, for instance, but not by location. Here are s.ome options.

1. Use bUlldled software: Since an external hard drive is the best medium to back your files up to, and since most such drives come with backup software, use the program that accompanied your drive. It's almost certainly better than Vista's.

2. Do it online: Uploading your data over the Internet is slow, but it's easy and it adds protection by putting hundreds of miles between your hard drive and your backup. I recommend Mozy Home. It's free for a 2GB backup, or a month for unlimited storage from a single pc.

3. Use the best software: For my money, that's the same Genie Backup Manager I recommended in the last tip. Versatile and simple to use, it easily handles scheduled and manual backups, and can even purge your backup media of old backups on a regular schedule. But the Home version and the Professional one.

4. Find a bargain: Argentum Backup, doesn't perform a full system backup, but it handles data backups well. It copies files or compresses them into zip archives, so you don't need Argentum Backup to restore them.

Closing Thoughts


The green initiatives our modern datacenter has put in place are already yielding excellent savings in the energy realm and with the plans we have for 2009, the GNAX team is excited to see just how far we can take this efficiency challenge. This is the present reality of responsible data center management and the industry’s premier research organization, the Uptime Institute, has entitled their upcoming 4th Annual Research Symposium: Lean, Clean, & Green. We’ll be there April 13 to 16 in New York City and are looking forward to meeting our colleagues and learning more ways of keeping it green in our datacenter world.


About the Author and Company


The author, Jeff Hinkle, is President of Global Net Access (GNAX) and highly invested in green initiatives and the conservation of our planet’s resources. Jeff has a long and deep history in creative datacenter and networking solutions. The author can be reached for questions and comments at jhinkle@atlantanap.com.


About the company: Global Net Access (GNAX) is the parent company of two industry-leading business lines: Enterprise Level Co-Location and Dedicated Servers. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and also has operations in Dallas, Texas. GNAX runs primary operations out of AtlantaNAP (www.atlantanap.com), which is host to numerous corporate and enterprise co-location clients. The company’s dedicated server line, NetDepot (www.netdepot.com), operates over 2000 dedicated servers for clients spanning the globe. The recent expansion to Dallas allows the company to better serve the high demand for colocation and dedicated server clients in the dynamic Texas market. For more information about green datacenter initiatives, as well as creative hosting and networking strategies, please visit www.gnax.net or call 404-230-9150.