Re: State-of-the Art Backup Systems

[Barb Philbrick <burkbrick -at- AOL -dot- COM>]

In article <01BBD213 -dot- 5A9BEB80 -at- ltc -dot- mv -dot- com>, Jonathan Leer
<jleer -at- ltc -dot- mv -dot- com> writes:

>As an independent technical communicator, I am working on several
>concurrent projects which of require backing up. Many of these
>publications are lengthy with numerous graphics. Hence they take up a
>lot of space.

I saw that a couple of people recommended the Iomega ZIP, but for me, they
weren't large enough or cheap enough to use for backups, though they might
be nice for transporting files.

I do, however, like my Iomega Ditto Easy 3200 tape drive. A single tape
holds 1.6 gigabytes of data (uncompressed; it says 3.2 gig compressed, but
I'd rather buy another tape than trust compression), which is enough to
back up all of my files. The tapes aren't too outragreous and it's worked
well with Windows 95 (I'm backing up three computers over a network). I
have used it to retrieve files off the tapes, and it's not too painful.

I keep all of my client's files as a courtesy to them (sort of an off-site
backup, a CYA for me, and so I can grab pieces of text, formats, and
clipart that I can use on other jobs. My main hard drive fills up about
once or twice a year. When it does, I back my files onto a tape and have
the files copied to two CD-ROMs - one that I store off-site and one that I
keep in the office. I have found that the CD-ROM is a great way to keep
things accessible without constantly buying new hard drives. It cost me
about $100 to make the CDs last time I did it.

Hope this helps,

Barb