backup

Best backup methods

You buy MP3s, take photos, write long love letters to Cloris Leachman, and you keep it all on your hard drive. If that hard drive crashes, you're done for. Unless you backed up. But what's the best way to back up? There are several ways to do this. We're going to discuss three. You can see some of them in action in our video.

External Hard drive Network Attached Storage Online service

Let's start with the external hard drive. Obviously, you don't want to back up to the same hard drive where the original files are. That's just silly.

The simplest method is to buy an external hard drive and back up to that. Our favorite here at CNET is the ClickFree portable backup. It makes the process of backing up as simple as you can imagine. The software is stored on the drive, so you just plug it in and tell it what to back up.

You can also do it yourself. If you have an old hard drive lying around, say from upgrading a notebook, just put it in a case. We show how to do it in this video on upgrading your hard drive.… Read more

Audiovox ACA250 wireless rearview camera review

Large trucks, vans, and SUVs often have a proportionately large rear blind spot making backing up a tricky and, at times, dangerous ordeal. Automotive manufacturers have begun to offer backup cameras on their larger vehicles as optional or standard features. But what about owners of older vehicles that weren't offered with factory installed rearview cameras?

Offering a simple, four-wire installation on most vehicles, the Audiovox ACA250 wireless backup camera can be installed by a person comfortable with simple hand tools in an afternoon. For your labors, the camera system greatly increases the low-speed safety of your vehicle by giving … Read more

Podcast: Zmanda offers cloud backup for small businesses

Zmanda CEO Chander Kant tells CBS News & CNET Technology Analyst Larry Magid how his company is providing online "cloud" data backup services for small businesses. Rather than store the data itself, Zmanda is contracting with Amazon's S3 Simple Storage Service to store its customers' data.

The company sells an easy to use Windows program that connects directly with Amazon's S3 backup servers. The software costs $50 and the storage costs 20 cents per gigabyte per month.

Clickfree portable drive cinches up data backup

Forget about annoying drag-and-drop data backups and scheduled timers--the Clickfree Portable Backup Drive makes it so easy that it might convince you to start dual-saving your files. All the software you need is actually preloaded onto the drive and starts up automatically when you plug it in. From there, you can select exactly what kinds of files you want the Clickfree to find, organize, and back up, or you can simply make a carbon copy of your desktop master drive.

The drive is available in several capacities up to 500GB and works with both Mac and Windows. We have to … Read more

Solid WinZip alternative

A reliable compression tool for folks wanting an alternative to WinZip, TurboZip is user friendly and easy to master. In previous versions, you needed to provide some minimal personal information to register the tool before it would install, but this requirement has been removed. The TurboZip interface has a familiar three-paned appearance similar to that of e-mail programs like Microsoft Outlook.

One pane lists the archives you've created; the second pane reveals a list of the files in the archive you select; and the third pane displays the contents of the file you choose, much like a preview pane. … Read more

Backing up gets dummy-proof, thanks to new blank discs

The gist of backing up is as simple as copying files from one place to another. However, the actual work of getting this done is still a lot more complicated than some people can handle. I've met people who make copies of desktop shortcuts, thinking they have backed up their documents, or those who think the computer's optical (DVD/CD) drive can be used as a retractable cup-holder.

(This might sounds like an old joke, but take a look at the drive; you'll see that they kind of have a point.)

But now, there's a new, easier way to back up your files, using a new type of optical media--AutoSave discs--recently introduced by a French company called TX WEA.

In a nutshell, the product is a blank optical media disc that isn't blank at all. It has backup software embedded that runs as you insert the media into the computer's optical drive.

AutoRun is not new and can be even annoying sometimes. The difference of AutoSave is the fact that the software automatically saves photos, e-mails, and Office documents on the particular disc you just insert; you even have the option to encrypt the backed-up files.

The product comes in four styles:

… Read more

Behind the design: frog designer Robert Curtis talks about creating SanDisk's new flash drives

SanDisk, the world's largest supplier of flash storage cards, has introduced an innovative new family of USB flash drives, including the world's first backup USB flash drive with simple backup software activation at the touch of a button. frog design, my employer, provided the design language for the entire new SanDisk USB family, and I asked my colleague Robert Curtis, executive creative director industrial design at frog, a few questions about the design process:

What was the first thing SanDisk said to you about the design when they initially approached you and your team? Robert Curtis: SanDisk is … Read more

Iomega ushers in the new year with an exclusive 1TB network drive

This year's CES saw the release of Iomega's Home Media Network Drive, a new addition to their line of external storage devices, joining the ranks of similar devices like the Iomega StorCenter and the Iomega StorCenter ix2, but with a few simple changes. First, the drives now come with an easy setup that lets users get up and running sharing media across a network in three easy steps: plug in the drive, power on, and install the included EMC LifeLine Home software that runs on the Linux operating system to contributes to the snag-free process.

Other features of … Read more

Back up with an elephant's memory

The program provides standard functionality for backing up and synchronizing your data. Like many similar applications, Second Copy is based on profiles that store information about what files to back up, where and when to do so, and so on.

The program can back up 25 versions of the same file, handy for those users who routinely make a lot of changes. All you have to do to create a new profile is modify a similar one. You can group numerous profiles and run backups automatically in the background. For more advanced users, the program offers FTP support, command-line options, … Read more