Genius devices to backup your valuable data

Genius devices to backup your valuable data

Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta, zatni@cbn.net.id

Today, I am working on my old Pentium III PC again, and my
daughter can smile again as she has got her PC back.
Theoretically, my data, which is now stored on two mirrored SCSI
hard disks, should be much safer.

As I wrote in this column last week, I also bought an
external, USB 2.0/FireWire hard disk enclosure. It is a cute,
beige plastic enclosure with a stand and an external power
supply. Placing a 3.5-inch hard disk inside does not require the
skills of a racetrack mechanic, and we do not even need a
screwdriver to open the cover. I did not buy a hard disk for it,
as I had a couple of old hard disks in my desk drawers that I
could probably still use. The hard disk enclosure itself cost me
Rp 750,000. The models that support only USB 2.0 or FireWire, but
not both, would cost less, of course.

Incidentally, at home I also had a crippled PC that one of my
friends had given to me when he bought a new one. For the past
four years, that PC had been collecting dust in a corner next to
my mountain bike. I picked up that PC, opened the casing and took
its hard disk out. It was a 2 GB Quantum, which was known to be
quite a reliable model. I was not sure whether it was still
working, though.

To find out, I put it inside the enclosure, plugged the data
and power cables to the hard disk, plugged the USB cable to my
USB 1.1 port and pressed the power button. To my pleasant
surprise, Windows XP immediately recognized the external data
storage as a removable disk. After a few seconds, a dialog box
appeared on my screen, just like when you insert a CD-ROM into
its drive.

I then used Windows Explorer to check the contents of the hard
disk. It turned out that its My Documents folder was still
intact. I immediately copied all the files to a CD-ROM. When this
friend of mine learned that his files had been recovered and
saved on a CD-ROM, he was overjoyed. "You just do not know what
it means to me," he said. Of course I do, as he is also a
reporter.

Now, I am using an old 2 GB Seagate hard disk as my external
hard disk. This hard disk may be a couple of years old, but it
came from a Compaq Presario whose owner wanted a larger hard
disk, so it should be a good one. Once a week, I copy all the
contents of my SCSI hard disks to it as my second backup.

And, believe it or not, so far my files only take up around
142 MB of the total 2 GB capacity. It will be a long time before
I need to replace the hard disk with a larger one.

The external hard disk uses USB 2.0, but I only have USB 1.1
ports on my three-year-old machine. It does not matter, actually,
as the USB 2.0 is backward compatible. However, Windows XP will
remind me each time that the speed will be limited if I do not
use USB 2.0.

Several USB 2.0 cards are available at the stores. They are
plug-and-play cards, and if you use Windows XP, you will not need
to install the driver. There are also FireWire add-on cards that
you can install on your PC to enable you to use the external hard
disk or upload video files from your digital cameras.

If you need to access hard disks that other people think are
already dead, I would really recommend buying this external hard
disk enclosure. You can use it to test hard disks without having
to open the casing of your PC, for example. In my case, I was
also able to access the content of another friend's hard disk and
save the files on a CD-ROM for him.

* KVM

My study is quite small, actually. On my desk, I only have
space for one keyboard and one monitor. During the weeks I was
fixing the PC I use for my work, I had to continue working with
the PC I borrowed from my daughter. To be able to work with both
PCs using the same keyboard, mouse and monitor, I bought a KVM
(keyboard, video and mouse) switch. Several makes and models were
available at the stores, but I chose the one that could connect
to four PCs. It cost me around US$85.

With the KVM switch, all I needed to do was plug the monitor
data cable, the keyboard and mouse cables to the device and use
the supplied cables to connect it to the PCs. No power supply was
necessary, as the device drew power from the PCs.

Many years ago I bought a similar product, but that one still
used a mechanical switch. Understandably, the product did not
last long and I soon experienced short circuits that stopped my
PCs from operating properly. With the new KVM switch, everything
was done electronically. While there is a button on top of the
device that we can use to switch from one PC to another, you can
also use the hotkeys.

For example, if I wanted to connect my keyboard, mouse and
monitor to the PC on port number three, all I will have to do is
press the control key (Ctrl) twice followed by a "3".

One thing I found out later about the KVM that I had bought
was that it forced me to slow my typing. Each time I typed too
fast, some characters would be lost. Also, for some reason my
Logitech cordless mouse did not work with my daughter's ASUS
Prodigy when connected via the KVM switch.

* USB Flash Memory

As Chris, a JP reader, said in his e-mail to me last week, a
much simpler -- perhaps the simplest -- way to backup your data
today was to use the USB flash memory, also known as the thumb or
keychain memory device. They are very small and light and come in
various shapes and colors. They can store from 32, 64, 128, 256,
512 MB to 1 GB of data. The 1 GB version still costs Rp 2.5
million, though, while the 256 MB version now only costs around
Rp 600,000.

If you have one of these tiny memory devices, all you have to
do is plug it directly into one of your USB ports, and Windows XP
will immediately recognize it. If you run an older version of
Windows, you will need to install the software driver.

Stay tuned, as we will take a closer look at this and other
types of flash memory devices in an upcoming article.