Divide And Conquer
Fred, You have discussed (repeatedly) the need for backup of important data. You
have also discussed huge storage capabilities for homes and small businesses
into the terabyte range. Do you have any suggestion for simple, inexpensive
ways to back-up many hundreds of gigabytes of data? Even compressed and
using DVD's the task is monumental. Thanks, Mark
The trick is to partition your drive and segregate files according to backup priority.
Example: Put your OS and all your most-important, hard-to-replace files on a modestly-sized C: partition. Back that up every day; or at least frequently.
Put somewhat-important files, and files that can be replaced (albeit with a hassle), on D:. Back that up once, and then don't back it up again until the D: drive has changed significantly.
Put the junk/toy/garbage and easily-replaced files on E:. Don't worry about them, because they have intrinsically low value.
And so on; the basic concept is "divide and conquer." Even on a 1TB system (1,000 GB), the OS and most important, must-save files aren't likely to be more than 8-10GB or so. In fact, my C: drive is currently using only 7.5GB--- that's my OS and most-essential, must-have files. With the data compression used by a good imaging utility, I can squeeze that onto a single DVD.
If your C: drive is still too much to back up every day, at least back up the "My Documents" folder tree every day, and back up the rest of C: only when you've added software or made other significant changes to the setup.
In short, I agree with you completely: Backing up a giant drive can seem daunting. But not all files have equal value or importance: Chop your giant drive into smaller subsections and sort your files by backup priority. This lets you focus your efforts only where they're really needed, and thus the task becomes much more manageable!
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