Welcome to this issue of PC TECH FOR BEGINNERS, NOT DUMMIES a no nonsense approach (well maybe a little nonsense) to a newsletter based on computer hardware. Some have asked who should read this monthly newsletter. Well the title is the giveaway to that question, Beginners! The title is a true reflection of the content of this newsletter. PC TECH FOR BEGINNERS, NOT DUMMIES is written for those of you just starting out in your quest for deeper understanding of computer hardware. We cover many of the aspects of computers that you will not find anywhere else. In this issue we talk about one of the most important hardware part in your computer, the BACKUP DRIVES. This is not what you do when practicing for your driving license. With computers being a very important part of so many lives we would be lost if our data was lost. With so many choices in today's market backing up should be something everyone does.. So the question is DO YOU ? Ok I won't put you on the spot now, I will wait until your hard drive crashes and then ask the question, when you are in a good mood. So just sit back with a good cup of coffee, or for me expresso, and enjoy this issue of PC Tech for Beginners, Not Dummies. Again welcome to PC TECH FOR BEGINNERS, NOT DUMMIES and enjoy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DON'T GET YOUR BACK UP, BUT GET A BACKUP ! Whenever I teach students (when they are listening) that "everything you do with computers is done in the form of a file". What does this mean. Simply that all the fancy pictures, fonts, sound and the like is all stored on your computer as a files. If you don't believe me look go to the Control Panel of Windows 95 and double click on the sound icon. See the different sounds, now open the explorer and look for the files in the C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA folder. The same names appear. Cool stuff huh.. As a little side line, you can get some really neat wav files from a friend and create your own Windows startup tune. Like the Star Wars introduction tune for example. But I digress.. To get to the point of the matter, files are very important. If you lost the right file or a friend came by and deleted the Star Wars file your sound would not work. The same is true if the computer corrupted a file needed by your bookkeeping software, your bookkeeping would be then called book "lost" . How about the last 5 years of entrees into Quickbooks. Well you would be very unhappy to say the least. Have I got you thinking, maybe a little scared ! If not then listen to another phrase I tell my students, " there are only two kinds of computer users, those who have had hard drive crashes and those just waiting for it to happen". If you don't have your important files backed up on another type of storage media you are not going to be a happy camper when problems arise. Backing up your data is a inexpensive insurance policy against disaster. So, what are your options. Today there are many types of backup hardware to choose from. In this article we will give you a sample of some of them and web sites to get more specific information on them. So read on and welcome to this months issue of PCTECH FOR BEGINNERS, NOT DUMMIES ! TAPE BACKUP Tape backup drives do one thing best! They hold a lot of data for very little money. They are cheaper to buy and operate than the other forms of backup we will discuss in this newsletter. But tape is the slowest, most restrictive, and least user friendly form of file storage. Tape drives take a lot of time to read and write data. The question is: Does a tape drive fit your needs ? To answer this question you have to answer some other questions. Do you need to get to backed up data fast and regularly ? If not then tape is fine because tape takes so long to find the data and then to restore it to your hard drive that speed must not be the issue. Do you have a need to store large amounts of data and want to do it as economically as possible ? If the answer is yes then the tape is a great choice. How does Tape backup work Tape backup drives work much in the same way that the old 8 track music players did way back before the Disco era. A drive head contacts a magnetic coated, flexible medium (tape) that is charged by the drive as it passes under it. A typical tape cassette is divided into 72 tracks of data which extends the 740 linear feet of tape into over 10 miles of recordable space. Is there more than one type of tape backup ? Yes and here they are: QIC - Primarily used for single desktop computer backups. The QIC is the cheapest type of tape backup and also the smallest capacity. QIC stands for Quarter Inch Cassette and are predominately formatted in the TRAVAN format. These drives can now hold up to 4Gigabyte but you will still see some of the smaller ones out there that only hold 1 or less Gigabyte. See table below for Travan specifications. Travan Type Capacity TR-1 400 megabyte TR-2 800 megabyte TR-3 1.6 Gigabyte TR-4 4 Gigabyte DAT- or Digital Analog Tape drives change the position of the read/write head to write to the tracks diagonally allowing higher data densities or capabilities. This does not come without a price. The drives are more expensive but if large volume is your game these drives are great. DLT- or Digital Linear Tape is the highest standard in tape backups. They can hold up to 35 Gigabyte per tape. They not only hold the most they are the fastest performing tape drive. One of the reasons for this is that they can read and write data at the same time. Kinda like walking and chewing bubblegum (sorry for that slip). These drives could cost more than $5000 ( a lot of Bazooka wrappers I would say) WHICH TAPE DRIVE IS FOR ME ? Some other considerations when thinking about choosing a tape drive (in addition to the choices of type of drive as listed above) are: Capacity,Performance and interface,Compatibility,and Software capabilities. While we are talking about the considerations keep in mind that these same issues will enter into just about any hardware you buy. Further into this newsletter we will discuss other backup hardware. Please keep in mind these considerations as important when choosing among them as well. . CAPACITY When thinking about backing up you files you might want to separate these files into three categories. OPERATING SYSTEM FILES, APPLICATION FILES, and DATA FILES. This can help you in making the decision on how many files to backup. The Operating System files are the files that respond to the hardware when you are for example starting your computer, or punching the keys on the keyboard. These we will call the Windows 95 or 98 files. Backing these up or only a good idea if you constantly are having problems with someone deleting them, like your 4 year old computer whiz. But for the most part they not necessary to backup for they exist on the disk that came with the system. In addition the backup device may not work if the system will not start up correctly. This same rational goes for the Application Files which are the MS Word or the Excel files in your system. In order for these to work correctly they must be installed from the original disks so just copying off a backup to fix a problem may not help out to much. But the big , alltime, always, positively, and so on, important files to backup are the DATA files. These you cannot find on the manufacturer's distribution disks. These are your blood, sweat and tears. And only exist on your hard drive and in your mind. And if your mind is anything like mine, you will want another type of backup. So in saying all that what do you want to backup ? Data first, maybe some DOS applications that don't require installing into a Windows environment and optionally the Operating and Applications files. By looking at the quantity of files you will choose to backup will determine how much capacity you will need to do the job. One of the things I do to keep organized in my daily work is to separated my folders or directories in such a way that the Operating, Application and Data files are in separate folders. So for me C:\FREDDIE\EXCEL is where I store my Excel files and C:\FREDDIE\WORD is were I store my word files. In doing this I can easily find out how much capacity I need for a backup. Then simply oversize a backup to add space for these files and future needs as well. My rule of thumb is to get something at lease 3 times the size of your current data. Try this for fun. Right click on your data folder and go to properties. Windows will automatically add up all the files and folders in that folder and tell you how much space is used. Your needs may small enough to backup everything on a couple of floppy disks, or one zip disk (talked about later) and a tape drive is not necessary. Do a little math and your choice will be the right one. . NEAR DISK BACKUPS Somewhere in between a tape drive and a hard drive is a category of storage devices called near disk storage. They are called that because the ability to access data off the device is near to a hard drive. Unlike a tape drive you can access your files right off these devices. In fact your computer treats them just like another hard drive except you can remove the media and insert another. They are also great for sharing large files with your friends. They are only near because the speed of these units are not quite what a hard drive is. One of the most popular of these devices is Iomega's Zip drive which you probably have heard of. Most of these products range from 100 megabyte to 250 megabyte in capacity. Like large capacity floppies the near disk devices have a sliding window that protects the media inside. Unlike the floppies they are much faster and hold lots more data. Some devices are making themselves compatible with floppies, they can read the 1.44 megabyte floppy and the 100 megabyte disks they are produced for them. Near Disk Storage Capacity Iomega Zip Drive 100/250megabyte Iomega Ditto Drive 2 to 10 Gigabyte Iomega Jazz 1 and 2 Gigabyte Superdisk 120 megabyte Sony HiFD 200 megabyte SyQuest EZ Flyer 230 megabyte SyQuest Sparq 1 gigabyte More information on these great Near Disk drives can be found by visiting the following sites: www.iomega.com www.easystor.com www.sony.com www.syquest.com WRITABLE CD ROM DRIVES The last time of backup storage I would like to introduce is the one using CDs. These come in two flavors, the CD-R(read) and the CD-RW(read/write). The read units will allow only one backup on the disk and the read/write will allow the disk to be used over and over. CD-R Only allow you to write data once. So making a one time backup on a disk is the limit of its use. But for that year end backup that you place in a safety deposit box in anticipation of an IRS audit 5 years from now is a good use. Or backing up a bunch of utility files that you don't use often and don't want cluttering up your hard drive is another idea. The limit of write once is offset by the compatibility of the media. It is recognizable by most of today's regular CD-ROM drives. This makes it a good media for interchanging files with others. CD-RW Writing more than once had made the CD backup method more appealing. There is an compatibility issue with these drives that you should be aware of. Most older CD-ROM drives cannot read the disk from a CD-RW drive. Another setback is that these drives are pretty slow having recording speeds of 2 or 4x. DVD-R and DVD-RAM These drives are coming into the marketplace and make replace the above units in the near future. We will talk about them in future issues of these newsletter. PERFORMANCE AND INTERFACE A critical part of performance is the drive interface. Interfaces include SCSI, Parallel port, IDE, floppy drive, and the future will be USB(discussed in future articles). Is the unit an external or an internal unit ? External units cost more but can be swapped between machines, for example the computer at home and the one at work. A SCSI interface is by far the fastest way to fly. The setback is that you will need to have a SCSI card installed on your computer. Most of today's PCs do not come from the factory with one already in place. But if a really fast and large tape drive is necessary for your backup needs then it is worth it. Keep in mind this type of interface is probably only applicable for business's with large backup needs. I mention the SCSI interface only in interest and to show you what is out there. A Parallel Port interface is probably the simplest and easiest interface to use. The devices just plug into the printer jack on the back of your computer. They usually have a printer-by-pass jack for you to plug your printer into so that you can backup and print without exchanging cables all the time. Since these devices are plugged into outside of the computer they are called an external backup unit. You don't have to open up the computer case and install the backup device inside. All the hardware sits on the table on the outside of the computer. Something else very useful about the Parallel Port interface backup units is that they are easy to unattached and bring to another site and be used on another computer or laptop. So you can do a backup at the office and then bring all the company files home to start your own business with their data...just kidding. But you can see how moving files from one location to another could be advantageous to many people. One setback to the Parallel Port interface is that it is much slower that the SCSI and IDE interfaces. Another is that external units usually cost considerably more than internal units. A IDE interface is the same one used by your hard drive and probably your CD-ROM drive. It is a fast interface and is supplied on all of today's computers. The computers you buy today have 2 such interfaces and each is capable of supporting 2 units each. This gives you the ability to support up to 4 IDE devices. So you could have 2 hard drives, 1 CD-ROM drive and 1 backup device without going out and purchasing any special interface. These backup devices are going to be an internal device, meaning you have to open the case and install them inside. The only part of the device you see is the front cover or bezel in which you insert the backup media (disk or tape). The Floppy Drive interface is primarily used by tape drive backup devices. They are generally slow but the price is very cheep. Since the floppy drive interface in today's computers will support two devices and most computers only have the 3 1/2 inch floppy drive, it makes for a good source to control the backup device. Drive Type Interface type Megabytes stored per $1 Tape Backup SCSI, Floppy,Parallel 135 MB CD-RW SCSI, IDE 43 MB SyQuest IDE, SCSI 34 MB Hard Drive SCSI, IDE 22 MB Iomega Zip SCSI, IDE, Parallel Under 8 MB As time goes on these costs will change but you still get the idea proportionately. SOFTWARE CONSIDERATIONS One of the most important considerations in doing a backup is the software. Remember that without software your computer is just an odd shaped boat anchor ! Effective backups must occur on schedule, using methods that ensure that you can recover the information with ease and confidence. A good backup software will allow automatic backups that you schedule at certain dates or time. They will backup up only what you choose to backup and check the data on the backup with the data on the hard drive to make sure that the backup is a good one and can be used for recovery in the future. The software should be able to give you a choice of routines to use in making the backup. Windows 95 has a backup program included called Backup. It is limited and will not schedule backups, but it is free. Other places to check out backup software are: http://www.download.com http://www.seagatesoftware.com . STRATAGY FOR BACKUPS The software for backups should allow FULL, INCREMENTAL AND DIFFERENTIAL backups. A FULL backup writes everything on your harddrive to the backup. An INCREMENTAL backup writes anything that has changed since the last incremental backup. And a DIFFERENTIAL backup writes anything that has changed since the last full backup. These choices are important especially if your backup device is limited in capacity. A full backup might take up a lot of tape or disk space and may not be as important as only backing up the data you used since the last time you backed up up. In addition backup media (disk or tape) should be rotated in a manner that keeps a good backup safe at all times. I suggest using a FIVE-TAPE-ROTATION. Using this rotations especially if your data changes daily. Label five tapes or disks Monday through Friday. Each day switch to the appropriate labeled media so that the data for that day goes on that tape. I like to make an incremental or differential backup on Monday to Thursday and a full backup on Friday. The Friday full backup should be keep offsite in case you have a fire. Lastly you should check your backups on occasion to make sure that they are actually good. Try to restore a file off the backups periodically, say monthly, to ensure that you don't have a bad media.
________________________ WANT TO KNOW MORE _______________________ Go to the below sites for more information of backup and storage drives. http://www.zdnet.com/computershopper/edit/howtobuy/storage.htm http://www.zdnet.com/product/stories/reviews http://www2pcworld.com/hardware/storage_backup/articles/ . Questions and Answers (Asked by the computer novice) Q. My backup device keeps giving me disk error messages when I try to backup to it. What is wrong ? A. The device read/write heads are probably dirty and need cleaning. Try cleaning with a cleaning kit recommend in the manual that came with the drive. These kits may come in wet or dry options. The wet kits cause less wear on the head. If after cleaning the drive the errors continue try another tape or disk. If the errors don't go away you will probably have to replace the drive. Contact the Manufacture about warranty information. Q. I installed and IDE internal Zip drive in my computer on the same cable with my second hard drive which is plugged into the secondary IDE port. The zip drive will not work after I have installed the software included, what is wrong ? A. Check the cables to make sure the #1 pin (marked with color edge) of the cable is matched with the #1 pin of the drive. Make sure the power cable is connected. Then make sure the jumper pin setting MASTER OR SLAVE is set on both the hard drive and the Zip drive. For example the hard drive can be set to master with slave present and the Zip drive to slave (factory setting). . WANT TO TAKE BUILDING COMPUTERS TO THE NEXT LEVEL? How would you like to make money installing hard drives and other components? The knowledge you need awaits you at: http://www.freddies.com visit them soon! Give a one year subscription to a friend its only $5.00 To subscribe to one year of PC TECH FOR BEGINNERS, NOT DUMMIES click here to go to our order site. Please have your credit card ready for our secure order site. Click here to go to order form www.freddies.com/ordernewsletter PC TECH FOR BEGGINERS, NOT DUMMIES is a published monthly by F.C.S. We can be found at http://www.freddies.com Comments are welcome to webmaster@freddies.com .
Wishing you Success
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