Photo: Seagate

Data, the little bits of information that make computer usage worthwhile, are the lifeblood of any computer user. Everything you’ve ever created, worked on or edited over your computer’s lifespan is stored on some form of a drive as data. The unsettling thing is all of this can be lost in a flash.It is alarming how few people perform data backup to protect themselves from this loss. You really need to perform data backup frequently. How often depends on how time-sensitive the information you work with is, but for the purposes of this article, we’ll say once a month at least, weekly ideally, and daily at best.

What’s at Stake?

What’s the cost of slacking on data storage? Imagine a bank losing its customers’ data. Or a hospital losing its patient records. A legal institution losing all its digital case files. Everything. That’s the risk those organisations run if they don’t practice good data backup techniques. Ask T-Mobile: they were on the verge of a huge class action lawsuit when they thought they had lost their user’s data without possibility of recovery. What risk do you run?

So What Are Your Options?

Thankfully, it doesn’t require tech savvy to backup your files. Data storage really means duplicating your files from one location to another. So if you were to clone your hard drive’s content to an external drive, that would be an example of backing up your data. Thankfully, there are various built-in, freely available or web-based options for all computer users. Most contemporary operating systems have data backup built into the core offering, such as Apple’s ‘Time Machine’ or Windows’ ‘Backup Your Data’ function found in the control panel. Most manufacturers even have their own backup solution built in, such as Lenovo’s Lenovo Care.

Up In the Clouds

Many web alternatives for data backup have emerged. Dropbox, a web app which allows you to easily sync content between your computer and the web, is one such example. Google has recently made an announcement that users can now transfer – and, by extension, store – any file types on Google Docs.

Too Simple Not To Do

The point here is that data storage has never been so easy. And, if you have yet to be affected by losing your data, when it does happen – because it inevitably will – it will hurt far more than you imagine. It doesn’t help to regret not backing up data after it’s been lost. Not only could you be out of pocket by several hundreds of pounds in trying to retrieve the data, but it may very well be gone for good. Best not to get caught unawares.

With a capacity of 32GB, Sandisk Ultra Backup 32GB is a USB stick with a plastic body. With compact dimensions, the USB comes included with U3 portable apps launcher and backup software. Slightly different from the traditional external drives, now a new generation of backup devices is emerging. This latest generation of external drives are one-touch USB flash drives that balance the convenience of small size with sophisticated backup applications for data protection. Sandisk Ultra Backup 32GB belongs to this latest genre of backup devices that have push-button backups with SanDisk’s U3 smart-drive technology. This technology allows the user to store Windows PC user preferences, profiles and settings and also download a limited number of applications from the flash drive.

Besides the 32GB version, the Sandisk USB Flash Drive also comes in 8GB, 16GB and 64GB capacities. Easy and quick to set up, it has handy backup features and no cap. It uses a retractable USB connector that can be pushed back into the body of the drive. It has been encased in ultra-thin plastic body which gives it a flimsy feel. However, the device is lightweight and compact and extremely portable. The SanDisk Ultra Backup 32GB drive is compatible with Skype for VoIP, Trillian for instant messaging and Mozilla’s Firefox Internet browser and all three can be launched directly from drive itself. The external drive also offers custom applications with the U3 technology that allow downloading YouSendIt. Another helpful feature of the drive is that each time it is pressed, the one-touch button backs up all your pre-selected files and folders.

Enabled with RAID, My Book Studio Edition II 4TB is a Quad interface that has been formatted for Mac. It consumes 30% less power and is a high performing device. Equipped with FireWire 800, it has a Serial Bus Transfer Rate of 800 Mb/s. The Western Digital device gives the high speed needed for smooth video editing and saves huge blocks of data in record time. It runs quietly and does not need a fan. It is eco-friendly and is much cooler than standard systems. Its eSATA has a Serial Bus Transfer Rate of 3GB/sec while its USB has a Serial Bus Transfer Rate of 480MB/sec. Compatible with Apple’s Time Machine, it includes software and instructions for reformatting to Windows.

Flexible and convenient, it also includes FireWire 400 and USB 2.0. To upgrade the drive, one simply needs to open the case and replace the existing drive and no screwdriver is needed. Also, the user can easily back up important projects to multiple destinations including file servers, portable drives and My Book. Every time a change is saved, it is automatically backed up. So, you need not worry about losing vital information and data. Available with a 5-year limited warranty, the drive allows the user to see how much space is available on your storage system. The My Book Studio Edition II 4TB is equipped with intelligent drive management features that allows automatic power-up and safe shutdown. LED status and activity lights make this storage system especially easy to use. The complete package includes dual-drive storage system, FireWire 800 cable, FireWire 800 to 400 cable, USB cable, AC adapter, Software CD and Quick Install Guide.

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2009 is the ultimate solution for data backup and hard drive partition management. It’s a jack-of-all and can be used with almost every hard drive installed in the PC. The Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2009 provides a comprehensive disk backup and partitioning console in a user friendly interface.

Usually, there are two types of hard disk management applications, one that creates an image of entire hard disk for backup purposes and another one that offers management of the hard drive partitions. The successor to Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2008 offers both of the functions in a single package with extended functions and tools. The best feature of this 2009 edition software is its interactive user interface and self explanatory wizards that guide the user at every step and automate the configuration tasks. The program offers both file by file backup as well as full disk image backup. So, you can backup selective files quickly without waiting for the complete disk image. The Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2009 do not have a built-in scheduler to automate the backup process but it can be used with the Microsoft Windows scheduler if you are using higher-end version of Windows XP or Vista.

The Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2009 can also be used to create and manage hard drive partitions. It has got a mighty disk defragmenter which performs far better than the Windows defragmenter but it do take lots of time and does not support background processing. This means while the application’s defragmenter is running you cannot run any other program. The program takes about four hours to de-fragment 85GB of files. The program supports 64 bit versions of Windows Vista along with the 32 bit versions of Vista and XP. It is also helpful in rectifying disk start-up errors.

Tags for this article: toshiba, backup, software

The most frightening and frustrating moment for any PC user is when he looses all his data during a HDD crash. So, to avoid this in the future he promises to himself that he will always take the backup of all his data onto an external drive, but as soon as he tries to do this, he find the whole process time consuming and complicated.

But now there’s an easy solution for these kinds of problems. The new Clickfree HD801 Portable Backup lets users take the backup of each and every bit, organise them and finalise the backup operation automatically. No user intervention is required at all. As soon as you hook up the Clickfree HD801 Portable Backup the embedded software automatically searches for the files on your system and initiates the backup, which doesn’t happen with ordinary external hard drives like the Verbatim External Hard Drive 750 GB. Instead the Clickfree HD801 portable backup automatically categorises the backup under various sections such as photos, music, emails, text docs, spreadsheets, presentations, artwork and drawings, video, favourite websites and much more.

There are two USB connections that are meant to be used together to avoid backup crash in case of power surges. If anyhow, the backup crashes the Clickfree HD801 automatically resumes it from the last saved point. This device is produced to offer a complete automated backup but if you still want to change the default preferences then it won’t stop you. The Clickfree HD801 is available from 120GB to 500 GB.

Tags for this article: backup, clickfree 500, portable

Nowadays laptop users tend to flood their hard drives with enormous amount of data. This is because the technology is marching forward at a fast pace and users are now inclined towards high definition digital entertainment and other such applications. Gone are those days when an 80 GB hard disk drive was considered more than enough to accommodate all one’s data. With the coming of Blu-ray media and DirectX 10 games, applications are taking gigabytes of space after getting installed. Therefore, everyone is considering a HDD replacement for his laptop.

The most tedious task during HDD replacement is to transfer the data from the old drive to the new one. Simply copy n paste method doesn’t get you all your data. It leaves behind all the system’s files and other hidden folders which in most of the cases are unknown to the users. But now there’s a convenient solution to this problem, i.e. the new CMS USB 2.0 Data Transfer Kit. It includes an empty HDD enclosure that can accommodate 2.5 inch notebook class HDD, such as the Toshiba 2.5″ HDD 250GB MK2552GSX, USB cables, screws, a mini screw driver and the powerful data backup software by CMS called BounceBack Transfer software.

You can easily install the software on the HDDs and it will take each and every bit for backup. Apart from the normal files and folders it will also take backup of operating system, boot blocks and invisible files and the best thing is that the software uninstalls itself from both hard drives after you’re done.

Tags for this article: mobile, laptop, drive

World class data management solutions provider, DS3 DataVaulting and BackupAgent, the veteran in producing disk based remote backup and recovery software has teamed up together to offer a whole new data security and recovery solution to the laptop owners.

According to a study a large number of laptops are stolen or lost every year and most of them do not have any security system installed that can protect the data theft. As a result, lots of people loose their personal and other sensitive data to wrong hands. Also they don’t have any option to recover that data on the new machine. To overcome such problems the two pioneers, i.e. DS3 DataVaulting and BackupAgent have developed a security application that will provide complete data security, backup and restoration services.

The DS3 DataVaulting Laptop Solution is optimized to perform the best with minimum user intervention. Once configured using pre designed security templates, the software automatically takes backup of all the data including PST files. It also supports popular disk encryption softwares such as TrueCrypt. So, in case the user looses his laptop the offender cannot access the data. The user can also recover the backup via web portal which itself is a high security web resource containing four levels of security parameters to authenticate the user.