What follows is my plan for backing up the important files from our computers. These files represent ideas, hard work, and precious memories. They warrant a logical backup plan.

This plan assumes you have a network between your computers, and one computer with a biggish drive (the “backup drive”) and a DVD burner. You’ll also need a program like Karen’s Replicator (free) to make backups for you automatically. You’ll want to find a location for keeping these DVDs that would survive a fire in your house/business. We won’t be depending heavily on these backup DVDs: they’re mainly for giving ourselves “a chance to get lucky”.

I’m going to break our files down into four categories:

  1. Really important and active business files. These will be saved on the local drive, the backup drive, and (once every ??) will be saved onto DVD-R and placed offsite. This includes:
    1. all active business folders
    2. all the idea and knowledge-base photos
    3. a well-maintained “biz audio” mp3 library (not music)
    4. (separate out archival video files that won’t be used within the quarter and don’t include them here.)
  2. “Lightweight files” of high and medium importance. By lightweight I mean file types that don’t use much memory. This would not include video, audio, or photos, but rather spreadsheets, letters, emails, etc… These files will be backed up to an offsite, online repository like Mozy. You can usually get 2GB for free, which should suffice for these lightweight files.
  3. Non-active but Keepers. This could include:
    1. family photos/video
    2. all the digital music
    3. (archived video for FR)
    4. non-active biz stuff
  4. “Unlikely to ever need again” These will be written to DVD and then deleted from the original and backup drive:
    1. Heavyweight, archival video footage that is unlikely to need to be reworked or re-edited.
    2. “snapshot” style backups — once a quarter, write the backup folders to a DVD and then delete them completely. Karen’s replicator will re-create the folders, but only with what is still in the replicator source.
    3. “pure archive” stuff (like AA or old cabs biz projects) that is unlikely to be needed again.