Backup computer data

Last revision October 5, 2009

Your final line of defense against damage caused by a hacker or other computer failure is to have good backups of your data files. In some cases, a hacker will deliberately or accidentally erase the files from your disk. Or your disk could suffer a hardware fail, causing loss of data. You could be in serious trouble if the only copy of your research data, latest paper, thesis, or grant proposal was among the lost files.

For faculty and staff, The School of Earth Sciences maintains a workstation backup server running the CrashPlan Pro software to provide free continuous backups of the documents (not operating system or applications) on their primary computer running Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS X. Computers can be added to this backup system by submitting a HelpSU request. Student computers and personally owned computers are not eligible for this service.

The School of Earth Sciences also provides a high performance file server with multiple levels of data protection, named sesfs.stanford.edu, that is ideally suited to keeping your data safe if your computer is not backed up on the CrashPlan server.

Every student, faculty, and staff member in the School has a personal "home share" on sesfs where he/she can store up to 10 Gigabytes of files. Use this home share to keep copies of your important data and files. In fact, if you work primarily on campus, file server access is fast enough that you can keep the master copy on the server and work on it directly from your computer.

Faculty and lab managers can also request a group share on sesfs to store larger data files and analyses used by a research group.

Faculty, staff, and students in the Energy Resources Engineering department get automatic backups of files kept on a specific drive partition of their department supplied computer. Members of that department should see the ERE Computer Information web page for details.

Another simple defense for your most important data and files, such as your thesis draft, is to buy a USB flash memory stick which you periodically connect to your computer and copy over your essential files. As of the date of this note, four gigabyte sized flash memory sticks are available from discount retailers for as little as $25. But don't make the mistake of a student that was publicized in the Stanford Daily. She kept her backup flash memory stick in the same case as her laptop and both were stolen. She had no other copies of her senior thesis. Keep this essential backup separate from your computer!

There are also internet based backup services that you can use to automatically backup files from your personal computer for free or a small fee. For example, check the services described in this recent MacWorld article.

There are many options for backup. The important thing is to start a backup program now!

Comments?