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.
