ELPBack

Robyn Peterson isn’t a computer newbie - after all, he’s in charge of technology for tech publisher Ziff Davis. So how did he lose his backup? Using a popular techie solution for online backup: FTP-ing his files to a web hosting provider. A perfectly reasonable, if somewhat tedious, solution. But as he found out, not such a secure option.

“We have been cracking down on people using our services for backing up files,” Robyn was told by the provider. The Terms of Service said their “servers are not intended as a data backup or archiving service.” Don’t check the fine print? Or don’t think it’ll be enforced? Ok sometimes…but when you really need that backup, you don’t want the response Robyn got when he asked whether his deleted files were backed up: “backups go back a maximum of only two weeks, and no backups are guaranteed.”

1 You backup strategy is to burn CDs and DVDs.
A diamond may be forever, but CDs and DVDs have a shelf-life. Even the Optical Storage Technology Association says an unrecorded disk will only last 5 to 10 years. And this assumes you’ve selected the right files and remember to do it, which brings me to reasons #2 and #3.

2Your backup strategy requires picking which files to backup.
If you’re like most people, you actually have no idea where your files are. Wait, you’re not like most people – you absolutely select which folders you put your files in. But some applications save files in random places. Have any idea where your iTunes playlists are? Hint: They’re not in My Documents. Windows hides folders. Vista forces older applications into a hidden sandbox. You probably know where most of your files are…but some files your care about are almost certainly somewhere else.

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