(2)

RAID

Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks

(3)

Hard drive

Actual physical chunk of metal and plastic, one or more spinning magnetically-coated platters

(4)

CD/DVD burner

Space into which a CD or DVD platter can be inserted and “burnt”

(5)

Partitioning

Conceptual or logical part of a Hard Drive

(6)

Formatting

Magnetizing the platter with 0s and 1s laid out in a physical pattern so that an operating system can write to and read from the disk.

(7)

Reformatting

Clearing out the relatively small area that is a directory or index to the existing data on a previously-formatted drive.

(8)

Encrypting

Scrambling the contents of a hard drive (the 1s and 0s) using a key (password) as the scrambling agent.

(9)

Mirror/MIR

Makes an exact copy of the original drive; no duplicated files

(10)

System Image

Generally, a restorable copy of the operating system partition. Needs a boot disk

(11)

Backup Copy

Off-machine and off-site copy of the contents of a hard drive.

(12)

Copy

On-machine and on-desk copy of the contents of a hard drive.

(13)

Proof

If you are not prepared to let ME delete any file(s) I want to, then you do not have a backup copy.

(14)

Value

Is of the contents of your computer’s hard drive. Photos of your family; your client database, your works-in-progress.

(15)

Value

Is the time you spent today at your computer accumulating data; the time it will take you to key in again whatever was on your mind yesterday or last week or last month.

(16)

Fire Proof/Resistant

A spectrum of time. Fire-proof must be air-sealed and capable of withstanding a fire for your specified period. Fire-resistant is probably not air-sealed, and could continue to supply oxygen until the contents are burned or at least carbonized.

(17)

Daily versus weekly

Arbitrary periods. I backup my hard drive at the end of each day. At the end of each week I backup that backup drive to a second, larger capacity hard drive.

(18)

More the better?

Not necessarily. If the number of copies of your files is too large for you to recover the ones you need, then your data loss is costing you time is money.

(19)

Duplicate backups

Similar to “More the better?”, even if you alternate between two or five backup drives (“Grandfather, father, son”)

(20)

Forums

Cost-free places to get advice. Scout around until you find a sober discussion, then register and join in.

(21)

Defragmenting

A waste of time and energy, and detrimental to your hard drive.

(22)

MTBF

Mean Time Between Failures. A statistic and no guarantee at all about a hard drive or a backup drive.

(23)

Deleting duplicates

A waste of time and energy, and detrimental to your hard drive. Buy a bigger hard driver and save yourself a lot of time. “In Pitman, if you make a mistake, you don't waste time erasing -- you just circle the mistake and rewrite it, which is quicker.”

(24)

SUN Microsystems

Study circa 2005: “97% of stored files are not accessed after three days”. The three-tier storage system. Brilliant.

(25)

Audit-trail versions

Regular periodic saves of a file with a new name, typically incremented by one at each save. Thus Indxr232.dot, Indxr233.dot, Indxr234.dot, Indxr235.dot, …

(26)

Blotter

Today’s desktop blotter: T:\Blotter\20200314\

(27)

substance

Assign drive letters to folders – which live in drives!

(28)

Backup versus Update

Backup refers to making a secure copy of a file system. Update refers to installing a newer version of a system (or program). You may speak of “updating my backup”, but you’ll confuse most of us.

(29)

1tb USB drives

partition

CD/DVD as backups

Transaction processing, add 10, del 10, recover