On a rainy day back in March 1993 my hard drive crashed. It was uneventful,
like a lightbulb going out. No warning signs, no sparks, no smoke, just sudden
silence and the sound of rain coming down outside my window. I did eventually
get most everything back, but this “sudden and unexpected death” of
something so vital to my education, work and communication has made me take back
up plans seriously ever since.
Back up routines in the early 90s, however, were cumbersome and difficult. The 1.44
MB and 700K (!) diskettes were too little, splitting files was too awkward and
professional tape backup systems were too expensive. Luckily, a lot has changed
since then. 100 MB Zip drives, 640 MB CD-R/W-drives, 20 GB hard drives and
10-Mbit ethernet networks have all become not only affordable but practically
standard equipment for most web developers. Add one more little tool, Winzip
8.0, and you have everything you need for an inexpensive, secure and
flexible backup routine. Here’s how:
1. Keep all of your working files, directories and websites under one folder,
e.g. AllFiles.
2. Once a week right click on your folder AllFiles and select Add toAllFiles.zip. Rename this file by adding the current
date, e.g. AllFiles-2000-10-23.zip and copy this file to
your exterior device, i.e. one of the following depending on your .zip file's
size:
ZIP-Drive (100 MB)
CD-R/W (640 MB)
second hard drive (6 – 20 GB)
other computers on your local network (20+ GB)
3. During the week, you can make numerous backups of active projects you are
working on by simply repeating the above procedure for that particular project’s
folder, e.g. create and copy the files DavesProject-2000-10-26.zip,
DavesProject-2000-10-27.zip and DavesProject-2000-10-28.zip.
4. When your external backup device fills up, delete the oldest file before
adding the newest one. This way you will have a running series of backups going
as far back as your storage device allows.
5. Here are the advantages of the WinZip backup solution:
Having the date in the file name in the above format allows you to easily
sort your backup files by project and date, even if the modified date has
changed on any of your files.
Since your backup files are packed away in .zip format, there is less chance
that you will mistake them for the originals.
With WinZip, you can conveniently retrieve files out of your .zip backups with
click and drag, nice. You can even view a backed up file, e.g. an access
database, straight out of the backup without even restoring it, very nice.
Your one .zip file copies to your backup device faster than the numerous individual files would. This is especially true if you use a ZIP-drive
which can be painfully slow if it has to copy hundreds of tiny files instead of
one large one.
As compressed files, of course, your .zip backups take up less space than 1-to-1 copies
of your files.
Although making a complete backup of all your files every week may sound
inefficient (there are many backup programs which update only changed files), it may save you someday if a corrupted file or virus sneaks into your
backups without your knowing. More than once I was able to trace a corrupted
Access 2000 file back three backups deep until I found an intact version of the
file.
Even if you are fortunate enough to work in a company where your files are
automatically stored on the server and therefore automatically backed up on
daily tape systems, the WinZip method will give you quicker, more individual
access to your files in case you need to restore a particular file quickly, nor
will you have to bother your system administrator.
With today’s gargantuan and inexpensive storage capacities, there is no reason
for a web developer to be caught with lost data from a hard disk crash, virus attack, or accidently
altered file. Make backing up a habit starting today and ensure that even if a
rainy day comes your way that the sun will still be shining on your web
development work.
