Posts Tagged ‘Floppy Disks’

Backup Solutions for the Busy Stay at Home Business Mom

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Walter Stevens is a contributor at Free-backup.info — the home of the popular Amazon S3 based tool for online remote backup — Back2zip. This article can be found at http://free-backup.info/backup-solutions-for-the-busy-stay-at-home-business-mom.html

Backup and the Busy Stay at Home Business Mom

For any computer user backup is important, but for the busy stay at home business mom it can be vital. Business moms not only need to keep their family in order but also have a home business to run, and if they use a computer for their business it is vital that they have access to the files that are essential to the running of their business. Business moms have no time to waste with the loss of important data due to a computer crash or virus, and for them backup is of vital import. Fortunately there are many possible solutions to your backup needs.

Online Backup

One of the growing tools with the growth of the internet is that of online backup. Online backup allows you to store your files online in reserve apart from your computer in case the worst happens. Then, you will be able to download your files just as you saved them and restore your computer to normalcy with all of your files returned.

This is a very powerful backup method, and also has the bonus feature of allowing you to access your files from any computer in the world by downloading them onto whichever system you are currently using. With new features being added to online backup systems all the time, and with storage amounts and uploading ease increasing as well, online backup can be a powerful solution for all of your backup needs.

CD-Rs, DVD-Rs and Your Computer Backup

New technologies are being created all the time that can prove very powerful for your backup needs. CD-Rs and DVD-Rs are two of the most powerful backup tools invented yet. While it used to be that floppy disks used to be the most common tools for backup, they are quickly becoming obsolete. After all, why bother with a floppy disk that can hold just over a megabyte of data when you can use a CD-R or a DVD-R which can hold hundreds or thousands of times as much data all on a single disk?

It is not uncommon to walk into a computer store these days and not even see a single computer which even has a floppy disk drive on it.

CD-Rs have been a round for a while, and there are now even CD-RWs which allow you to write your disk more than once. One drawback to using a CD-R or a DVD-R is that once you have written information onto your disk, the disk is finished and nothing new can be added to it and nothing can be taken away. This is not true with CD-RWs or DVD-RWs, which can be theoretically rewritten as many times as you require.

While they have not yet advanced to the stage of manipulability that a format such as the floppy drive can boast, this is a great advancement and allows for the far greater storage space that a floppy drive can never hope to obtain. You will find that DVD-Rs and DVD burners are more expensive than their CD burner predecessors, but this price is falling all the time and in the future will come to overtake CD-ROMs, so it is a good investment to make if you are serious about your backup.

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Computer Backup for the Freelance Writer

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Walter Stevens is a contributor at Free-backup.info — the home of the popular Amazon S3 based online backup solution — Back2zip. This article is also at http://free-backup.info/computer-backup-for-the-freelance-writer.html

What is Computer Backup?

Computer backup is the storing of copies of your files in a location apart from your hard drive. In this manner, if any damage is caused to the file on your hard drive or your hard drive in general, you will still have a copy of this file to access and use. Computer backup can take many forms, as you can utilize floppy disks, CD-Rs, DVD-Rs or the internet to perform your computer backup.

Computer Backup and the Freelance Writer

As a writer you know how important your documents are. If you lose a document for any reason it can be quite devastating to you and your writing business. Keeping proper computer backups of all of your files can save you much pain, anguish, time and trouble.

By creating copies of all of your important files, you can rest assured that no matter what happens to your computer or the files on your computer you will always have a copy of that important writing project in reserve somewhere, so that you can still access it and work on it. A writer never wants to lose his work, especially to something seemingly as trivial as a computer error.

Forms of Computer Backup

There are many different forms of computer backup. At its core all computer backup is is the storing of files on a location apart from your computer. Traditionally, floppy disks were often used for this purpose, but they are becoming increasingly obsolete. They are being replaced with CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and one of the newest forms of computer backup: the key drive. CD-Rs and DVD-Rs are burnable CDs and DVDs which can hold quite a bit of data: up to 800 and 4700 megabytes, respectively.

A key drive is a removable drive that is very small, the size of a key-chain, and can hold up to 2 gigabytes worth of data. They plug into your computer through a USB connection, and with most newer operating systems do not even require a device driver to utilize. There are also web sites in existence that allow you to backup your files online.

What is the Best Form of Computer Backup for Me?

While floppy disks are becoming increasingly obsolete, they can be a very useful form of backup for the freelance writer. CD-Rs and DVD-Rs, while able to hold great amounts of data, are not manipulable once you have written data to the disk. This means that you cannot re-save a file onto one of these disks, and if you are constantly working on a project they will be difficult to work with. While a floppy disk can only hold 1.4 megabytes, you can always work with any file on one and save it back to the disk.

This is also true with the new key drives, and if you are seeking to get ahead of the crowd, you might want to invest in one. Because it acts as essentially a removable drive, it is very easy to work with files that have been saved onto a key drive. If you are a hardworking writer who is constantly working on new projects, the key drive can be a powerful tool for you and your writing business.

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Computer Backup Made Easy

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Walter Stevens is a contributor at Free-backup.info — the home of the popular Amazon S3 based tool for online remote backup — Back2zip. This article can be found at http://free-backup.info/computer-backup-made-easy.html

What is Computer Backup?

Computer backup is the storing copies of your files on a medium other than your hard disk. The reason that we make computer backups is to protect against the event that something happens to damage our files so they are no longer usable. If we have backups of our files, then we can restore these files to our computer through our backups.

What is Involved in Computer Backup?

Computer backups can be made in very different formats. The traditional method of backing up computer files was the floppy disk. However, floppy disks are becoming increasingly obsolete. It is already not uncommon to not even see a new computer that includes a floppy disk drive when you go to the computer store, and it is becoming almost impossible to actually get a new computer that includes such a drive. Floppy disks can only hold 1.4 megabytes of data, and there are formats which can hold much more.

CD-Rs are CD-ROMs that you can actually write onto, and hold up to 800 megabytes of storage. You can also use CD-RWs, which can be written onto more than once, unlike a CD-R. DVD burners are also becoming increasingly common, and a typical DVD-R can hold up to 4700 megabytes, or 4.7 gigabytes.

Another new technology which is becoming common for computer backup is the key drive. These are removable drives which are very small, the size of a key chain, and many in fact are designed to operate as key chains. They can hold up to gigabytes worth of data, not as much as a typical DVD-R but still a sizeable amount of data.

You can also make backups of your files online. Online backup involves putting your computer files onto an online server, which you can access from any computer that is connected to the internet. This allows you to not have to bother with physical media such as key drives or CD-ROMs while still backing up your data in a secure location.

What is the Best Form of Computer Backup For Me?

Only you can decide which form of computer backup is best for you. CD-Rs and DVD-Rs both hold a lot of data, but they have the drawback of only being usable once. Even CD-RWs and DVD-RWs, which can be rewritten, are not as manipulable as the old floppy disks. Although you can rewrite the CD or DVD, you must still complete the rewrite all at once. You cannot simply take a file from the CD-RW, modify it then re-save it onto the CD-RW, you must rewrite all of the data on the entire disk. This can be a great drawback to using them for your storage use.

A key drive does not have such limitations. While they are not as large as a DVD-ROM, they are still sizable, and you can work on them just as you would any drive on your computer. This makes them very powerful for your computer backup needs.

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X-Drive and Internet Backup

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Walter Stevens is a contributor at Free-backup.info — the home of the popular Amazon S3 based online backup service — Back2zip. This article available at http://free-backup.info/x-drive-and-internet-backup.html

What is Internet Backup?

Internet backup involves the backing up of your files online. Unlike traditional forms of backup, which require you to have a physical medium on which to store your backup files, such as a floppy disk, CD-R or key drive, internet backup is done completely online. You upload your files to an online server, then can download them again at any time that you desire. It functions as an extra drive on your computer without actually being on your computer, freeing up your computer space and allowing you to backup your files without worrying about diskettes, CDs or removable drives.

X-Drive and Internet Backup

The x-drive is an excellent product in the world of internet backup. It serves as an online drive that can be used for storage, backup or the transmission of files. It is similar to having another drive installed on your computer, but you can access it from any computer in the world with an internet connection and requires you to physically move nothing, unlike CD-ROMs or floppy disks.

X-drive is found at www.x-drive.com. The drive can hold 5 gigabytes of data. At the current time there is only one size x-drive, but this could change in the future. 5 gigabytes is quite a bit of storage, and can hold a lot of your files.

Backup is a very important thing in this computer age. Great damage can be caused by a power surge, system crash or even a computer virus, resulting in the loss of your computer files. Having backups of your files is an excellent way to secure your data and make sure that no matter what harm may befall your computer, you will always have access to your important files.

Using a form of internet backup such as the x-drive is a powerful way to backup your files. Physical media such as CD-ROMs or floppy disks can become damaged themselves, and you can find yourself unable to access your data even from your backups. With online storage, you know you will always be able to access your files, and you can move your files wherever you go or whenever you change computers quickly and easily.

How do I Get an X-Drive for my Internet Backup?

In order to purchase your x-drive, you must go to the internet address of the x-drive found at www.x-drive.com. The drive gives you 5 gigabytes of storage, which is quite a bit of storage, more than you will find on any physical backup medium. It is one of the more powerful tools for internet backup, and is fairly inexpensive costing only 10 dollars a month.

For those new to internet backup or the x-drive, they also offer a free 15 day trial so that you might test their system and see if you feel that it works for you. This is an excellent offer, and can greatly assist you in your computing efforts. It is always smart to backup your computer, and the x-drive can make your backup go easier and smoother than you ever imagined.

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Options in Data Backup for Today’s Users

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

James Fohl is a contributor at Free-backup.info — the home of the popular Amazon S3 based Online Backup software — Back2zip. This resources is also available at http://free-backup.info/options-in-data-backup-for-todays-users.html

Data Backup options for today’s computer users.

Lately is seems that companies are releasing new computer data backup products every other day. It seems that only a decade ago the only option a user had for creating a backup of his personal data was to go purchase a large box of floppy disks, and spend an evening swapping disks.

Both floppy disks and Iomega Zip disks are useless backup tools because a user’s data today far exceeds the limitations of these devices.

Today though there are several options a user can utilize in order to backup their data. While floppy disks are still used today, their capacity of 1.44 megabytes is not going to backup much. The same goes for the old famous Zip 100 disks made by Iomega. They may be able to store one hundred megabytes of data per disk, but the transfer speed is incredibly slow, not to mention that one hundred megabytes is considered peanuts to today’s computer user.

CDs and DVDs are excellent choices for users wishing to create read only backups of their data.

Next we have optical media; CDs and DVDs. A CD can typically backup 700 megabytes of data, while a DVD can backup 4.7 gigabytes of data. Both of these options are perfect for the user who wants to make a read only backup of their data.

But what about the users who wish to make a backup copy of their data, and later on modify the same data made within the backup? Once CDs and DVDs are written, they must be completely erased and all data must be rewritten (only rewritable media) which isn’t every computer user’s cup of tea.

One solution are these neat little key chains which come embedded with flash memory. They plug into the USB port of any computer and require no drivers to be detected in an operating system. There small size isn’t mated with a small size of memory; devices holding several gigabytes of data can be purchased.

These key chain devices are being manufactured by literally hundreds of companies under hundreds of different names. Each company has their own personal design, but all of the devices work in the same manner. The devices allow you to easily backup your data, and even make savable modifications with the data.

Not only are the key chains small, and big in memory size, but they are also very affordable. At the time of this writing, a 512 megabyte key chain could be purchased for $40. That two inch key chain does the same as 355 floppy disks. Which would you rather have?

Companies are creating devices with multiple flash chips to allow bigger and better personal backup devices for your data.

There are a lot of different kinds of these flash based key chains coming onto the market. Some companies have realized that a user sometimes values memory over space, and have created larger ‘key chains’ which are comprised of several of the flash memory chips. By using several flash memory chips instead of just one, the companies are able to deliver portable backup storage solutions that are not only big on specifications, but also easy on the wallet.

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