When was the last time you backed up your genealogical data? Onto what medium did you back up the data? Where did you place the backups?
If you have to think for a minute or two about the above questions, it has been too long since you’ve backed up your data. The question I’ve seen most frequently asked when it comes to determining how often to perform backups is, how much data entry are you willing to redo since your last backups?
Backups shouldn’t be taken lightly. It seems like about twice a week I hear from customers who are having to reinstall Clooz because their systems crashed. Many of them are horrified when they find out that all of the effort they have put into data entry is lost because they didn’t back up their data before the crash.
There are multiple ways that you can back up your data. The following are several ways, but are certainly not all-inclusive:
1) Removable Disks. The dominant removable disk option on the market is the Iomega Zip www.iomega.com drives and disks. I have most frequently seen machines with Zip 100 drives either internal or as external drives. I use Zip 100 disks like I used to use 3.5" floppy disks. I like them because of the amount of data that they hold and the fact that files can be deleted from them. Iomega also makes a 250 MB Zip drive and Jaz drives with capacities of 1 and 2 GB. Other manufacturers have made removable disks, such as the 120MB Imation Superdisk www.imation.com, which has been discontinued by Imation. The drawback of Zip disks is the limited storage size and the size of the disks. For those who have plenty of photos to backup, the Zip disks will start to take up a lot of space. Jaz drives have more capacity and might be considered if this is an issue. Or, for a more reasonable price, create your own CDs.
2) CDs. CD-R and CD-RW drives are becoming more inexpensive all the time, and CDs can be bought in bulk for very reasonable prices. The CDs can hold 640 MB each, are thin, and are easy to create. The drives are sold with CD creation software and CDs can be setup and created within a matter of minutes. Some CDs can be written to multiple times and some can even be erased. This is the most flexible mode for storing data that is currently available to us. I’ve stopped saving my photos onto Zip disks and now save them onto CDs and keep a copy in my safe-deposit box. If you’re in the process of purchasing a new computer, make sure that you get one with at least a CD-R drive on it so you can create your own CDs.
3) Online Storage. A number of sites online offer storage of your files and the prices for this storage range from free to more than many of us want to pay. Make sure that before you sign up for one of these services, you read the fine print for the site to ensure you understand who has access to your data and what requirements you have to meet. Here are a few sites that offer free online storage for documents:
Web Based File Storage Services recommends that you store your documents on at least two sites if you’ll be needing access to the documents while you’re on the road. This will ensure that you still have access in case one of the sites goes down.
So how frequently should you back up? At a minimum, you should make a backup copy of your genealogical data when you’re done with a session. That backup should be copied onto removable storage or an online storage site. As a further precaution, you might consider getting a safe-deposit box at your local bank. Just remember to update the off-site backups on a regular basis also. Determine for yourself the amount of rekeying you’re willing to do if your hard drive crashes. And, don’t think it won’t happen to you. Odds are it will—especially when you least can afford the inconvenience.
Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, CGRS, CGL, is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing, editor of the Board for Certification of Genealogists’ newsletter OnBoard, the creator of Clooz—the electronic filing cabinet for genealogical records, co-creator of the new family health history program GeneWeaver, and a frequent contributor to Ancestry. She can be reached via e-mail at gceditor@ancestry.com.
GC Extra
