There are two kinds of people. Those who have lost data, and those who will lose data. If you belong to the former group, you can likely see the value of backups. While there are no guarantees, backups are a precautionary measure against data loss, by serving as a duplicate copy of your valued information. The more important the files, the more sense it makes to take precautions. It costs time and money to lose it, why not to protect it? |
Floppy disks are useful for small backups, about 1 Mb in size. For larger backups tape is the cheapest medium, but removable drive media have been growing in capacity and provide a faster if more expensive backup medium. Tapes come in up to 4 Gb capacity (uncompressed) if your drive supports it, while Zip Disks are 100 Mb and SyJet Cartridges are 1.5 Gb. Backups can be done manually or automated, with software designed for the purpose, or using batch files.
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Batch files are one way to automate backups and make them easy enough to ensure that they get done regularly. A batch file is nothing more than a series of commands such as you might type at a command prompt in DOS, but it takes the form of a file with a .BAT extension. Running a batch file (after you have written it, of course) is as simple as typing the name of file (minus the extension). In this way a variety of directories in DOS can be backed up easily and quickly.
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