Network-Attached Storage device is best way to back up PCs

Reader mail fills the box after several weeks of product reviews. Let's get to the mailbag.

Question: I need to back up all the files on several PCs in the house. Short of carrying around a USB drive, what is the best way?

Answer: Here is how I would do it. First, get a home NAS (Network-Attached Storage) device. This is a small box that you connect to a port on your router containing two or more hard drives.

Set it up for RAID-1, meaning you can lose the entire contents of one drive and still have all of your data. When that drive does, you pull it out and insert one of the same size or larger and the redundancy is restored automatically.

The NAS devices start at about $170 and go up and contain two or more drives. You generally buy the drives separately. Set up your network so all of your PCs are in the same workgroup and can see each other and the NAS.

Then I would get a copy of Acronis True Image for each PC in the house. Back up the PCs to the NAS once, then set up a weekly incremental backup of each PC on a different day. The incremental backups will only copy the files added or changed since the last backup, so it won't take very long.

That will give you full redundancy on all of your home PCs.

Question: You recommended a registry cleaner in your column that finds issues but won't fix the issues unless you pay $29. How come you said it was free?

Answer: I never have recommended a registry cleaner. I like (and use) Ad-Aware and SpyBot Search & Destroy, but they aren't specifically registry cleaners and don't charge. However, there are many sound-alike programs out there that try to convince you to download them. Most are spyware themselves.

One I would get if you have Windows XP is Windows Defender, which is free from the Microsoft Web site. If you have Vista, it is built-in by default. If you have a Mac, you don't need anything — except a right mouse button, but that's another whole column.

Question: Is there one program that combines all of the instant message programs out there that is any good?

Answer: There are several, including GAIM and Trillian. I use the latter and find it powerful and easy to use. The basic version is free and combines accounts from most of the biggies, including Yahoo, AIM and ICQ. I guess it is nice to have them all in one place.

Question: What is your recommendation for a free e-mail product?

Answer: My home ISP was purchased recently. Amazingly, it is going to make all of its customers change their e-mail addresses instead of just letting them keep them. So I am going to switch to Google Mail so I am never beholden to another ISP again. I would recommend Google for free e-mail.

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