Good Boot Backup Nag - Part 1

Each year with the arrival of the hurricane season I nag Good Boot backup procrastinators and naysayers. So for those folks expecting a Windows 7 tutorial, know that when I finish my backup nags I’ll be back with my Windows 7 tutorials.

This year I’m prefacing my backup series with a recommendation to those who currently faithfully practice a quality backup regimen. If you’d like the assurance that should your hard drive fail you’d not experience for even a nanosecond the inconvenience of not being able to compute, consider installing RAID 1 (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks).

When you implemented RAID 1 it’ll write to your Raid drive all the current data, System files, and programs on your C: drive. Then by writing to your Raid drive exactly what you’re writing to your C: drive as you’re writing it, should your C: drive fail, your computer will be able to automatically switch to the RAID drive and continue computing without missing a beat.

When you replace your C: drive, RAID 1 will automatically write back to it all the current data, System files, and programs written to your RAID drive. Your C: drive will again become your primary hard drive and do so without you having to reinstall Windows, your programs and data.

RAID 1 is relatively inexpensive as all you need is a RAID 1 Controller and a hard drive with the same capacity as your current C: drive.

Note: Because RAID hardware has become a popular built in feature of many current motherboards, you may discover your motherboard has a hardware RAID controller built in.

In support of my recommendation to considering RAID 1, know that from out of the box to whenever there’s no guarantee how long a hard drive will last. And if your hard drive is seven years old or older, most technicians will tell you to anticipate a possible failure.

Although I’m prefacing my backup series with a discussion of RAID 1, technically it’s not a backup technique. Please know it’s in no way a substitute for a quality backup regimen. RAID 1 is not a protection against viruses, accidental deletion of files, and\or any other data loss that’s not caused by a hard drive failure.

On August 11th at 6:00 PM in Lee Memorial Hospital Auditorium on Cleveland Avenue I’ll be presenting my annual Backup seminar. I’ll discus what in fact you should consider your ‘Irreplaceable Stuff’ and demonstrate just about every way you can effectively back it up.

Here's wishing you a Good Boot