Backing up to CD-RW, DVD-RW and DVD+RW Disks FIXED

I back up to thumb drives. NO pre-formatting required and not subject to fingerprints, scratches, etc.

They are also not subject parity checking or error correction of the data. Thumb drives are very convenient, but they lack any type of data protection or checking. A single bit failure can corrupt your data without giving any indication of a problem.

For Quicken data that I back up each day, I use Karen's Replicator to write the data to a DVD. Each day, I back up to a different directory. At the end of the quarter, the DVD goes to the safety deposit box at the bank. Then, I start a new one. A spool of blank disks makes them less than $1.00 each.

For the rest of my operating system and data, I back up to an external hard drive with Acronis True Image. About once a quarter, I back up the entire operating system and program disk drive to one file, and the data disk drive to another file. The external disk is moved to a place away from the computer.

When my "C" drive went bad, the restore to the new drive had me running within a few hours of getting the replacement drive. When I migrated to a new computer, I had all my data installed on it within an hour or two.

After 39 years working on computers, including writing file system and disk test programs, I've become very conscious of data integrity, and well aware of the many failure possibilities.

-- Jim