Hard drives are finite, so back up important data

One of today's major concerns of the home PC user — and digital photographer — is backing up data. One of the saddest calls we get in our repair business is someone who has taken thousands of digital photos, saved them to their hard drive, but then lost the hard drive.

What many people don't realize is that hard drives are finite devices in terms of lifespan. Sure, many people will never experience a hard-drive failure, but many people will. I personally believe in the effort to get PC prices low, hard drives now simply don't last as long as they used to.

Back in the day, as they say, we used to use these gigantic 150-megabyte (yes, megabyte) tape backup drives. Mine was a Colorado drive, which was ubiquitous in those days and took up the second drive bay in 486-era PCs.

Even with a tape drive, few people actually even ran the tape backup because it took so long and was unreliable.

So I have taken a long way of getting around to telling you that you ought to be backing up your data. With today's huge hard drives, the best way to do that is to have a second hard drive.

Again, a couple of choices. You can add a second hard drive to your PC case, if you know how do to that or want to hire it done. That's the simple solution. You then can program your backup software to run a backup nightly while you sleep. There is no portability to this solution, however.

Secondly, there are external drives for PCs and Macs that run off the USB or Firewire connections. These offer pretty fast connections and portability, meaning you can easily use them to back up more than one PC or carry them with you to the office or to a buddy's house.

These cost between $120 and $200 for typical consumer sizes. (Prices vary depending on how large a hard drive you want.)

The last option is to build an external drive yourself, which is surprisingly easy. If you have an extra hard drive around that is large enough, you can use that. If not, all you need to buy is a drive and an enclosure kit.

One of the best kits I have seen is from Azio. It makes one that matches the translucent look of the new Macs but also works great with Windows. One of the best things about this kit is how complete it is. Many of these kits come from way off-shore and don't come with on-off switches, fans or even power cords. This one not only combines form and function, it's also beautiful to look at (though I think the logo is a tad big).

It's available in both white and black Lexan for about $50. You can see the details at www.aziocorp.com.

Once you have the enclosure, you insert the hard drive, close the case with a couple of screws and plug it in. That's it. It's a great solution.

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James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair company, and a computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is jim@cyberdads.com