Gene Steinberg

By Gene Steinberg
Special to Gannett News Service

Important: If you're looking for the article entitled "eMac keeps promise of original iMac alive," point your Web browser to my "Mac Reality Check" archive site.

Nope, this article is not about potato chips, or some new candy bar or soft drink.

Instead I'm going to bring up again that often-neglected subject of backups.

I cannot tell you how many times I've talked to people who begged me to help them restore files after a hard drive failed in some fashion. The problem? No backups. If you don't make an extra copy of your critical data on another drive, you risk the loss of that data if your drive fails.

Why you must backup your files

Hard drives are mechanical, working day in and day out writing and reading files. Despite those humongous ratings about half a million hours between failures, hard drives can and do fail, and at times when you least expect it or when the failure is least welcome.

In addition, system crashes, or any action that forces you to restart your Mac without going through the usual routine, may damage delicate hard drive catalog files. When that damage gets really bad, files may disappear or the drive may become inaccessible.

Such programs as Alsoft's Disk Warrior, Symantec's Norton Utilities for Macintosh, or Micromat's TechTool Pro can fix many situations where the drive directory becomes corrupted, but nothing is perfect.

In addition, you can lose files for other reasons, such as fire, theft or simply by trashing the data by mistake (drive utility software can sometimes recover those files, but not always).

Yes, there are drive recovery services that can often resurrect your missing files, but the cost is high, and the outcome isn't always predictable.

If you have valuable financial information, work files or you're writing a book, such as I do on a regular basis, the best protection is to have more than one copy around.

Backup methods summarized

The easiest way to backup a file is simply to copy it to another drive. You do that regularly (such as when you wrap up a book chapter, illustration or you update your personal finances) and you won't have to waste hours and hours recreating lost work if the worst should happen.

Here's a brief look at some of the backup tools available:

Zip drives: The venerable Iomega Zip drive remains a popular alternative. There are three versions, with 100MB, 250MB and 750MB capacities. The disks seem reasonably robust, the drives have had some problems, but not too many. And they're relatively cheap. If your files aren't particularly huge, and you don't need to archive them for years at a time, this is a useful backup method.

Extra hard drive: This is an easy backup method, but external drives are more costly than removable media, and not as easily transported, unless you buy one of those super portable models. Since most recent Macs come with FireWire, you can acquire a speedy drive without spending a fortune, however. And you can even use your Apple iPod as a backup drive, so long as you haven't filled its drive with your music library, of course.

Optical drive: This is a fairly inexpensive way to go. Most Macs come with a built-in CD burner. Some include the SuperDrive, which can also record your data on DVDs. If your Mac didn't come with a CD burner, you can count on getting a really fast one at your favorite computer emporium for less than $200 (just make sure it's Mac compatible). The actual CDs are so cheap, it's ridiculous. I've seen packs of thirty or fifty CD blanks for $9.95, minus the factory rebate of course. If there's any downside, it's the fact that the standard CD-R media can't be erased. But you can opt for the CD-RW variety, which can be rewritten up to 1,000 times. It costs a little more, but if you plan on recycling your data every so often, it's worth it.

Internet Backups: Apple's $99 .Mac service, which gives you that cherished mac.com e-mail address, comes with 100MB of storage space. More is available if you are willing to pay extra. You even get a free backup utility, called, of course, Backup, which you can use to get your most mission critical files online. The weakness of this method is the capacity and the speed. Unless you have a broadband Internet connection, even uploading small files can be a chore.

Regardless of the method you pick, don't shortchange yourself. You will want to set up a regular backup schedule. Doing it once a day shouldn't be a chore to be neglected, but a normal part of your daily routine, like brushing your teeth and eating.

If you're a Mac OS X user, take note: Because of the complicated file system, it's not easy to backup an entire drive without some help. But several commercial and shareware programs, including Carbon Copy Cloner, and the marvelous Retrospect can handle that chore as well.

In fact, large businesses use Retrospect to create a full snapshot of a drive. That way, if something goes wrong, it can be restored in short order, without missing a beat; make that a file.

The program is easy to use, and can be set up to do automatic backups at the same time each day, so you don't have to remember, except to leave your Mac and backup drive on of course.