McAfee Student Survival Kit 1.0, Getting Started

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Getting Started 27
Using Student Survival Kit
Safe & Sound automates the back-up process, doing the time-consuming and
repetitive work for you. It lets you decide which types of files to back up, how
often to save them, and where you want the backup set located (on the same
drive, another local drive, or on a shared network drive). With Safe & Sound,
you can create mirror backup sets that are, at any given time, an exact replica
of the files you’ve selected to back up on the source drive. You can also specify
a short time delay in the backup, or back up manually by copying files to the
backup set on your drive if you prefer.
All forms of data storage are susceptible to losing the information they hold.
The most common types of data storage—hard drives, 3.5-inch disks, ZIP
disks or SyQuest tapes—are often called permanent storage (thus differentiating
them from the volatile storage in your computer’s RAM, random access
memory). Permanent storage means the information remains intact even
when you turn off your computer. Permanent storage does not mean eternal
storage.
Many things can cause the data on disks, tapes or drives to become garbled or
lost: hardware malfunctions, worn out media, electrical storms, excessive heat,
static electricity, magnets, loose cable or power cord connections, and so on.
CD discs, though durable, can become scratched enough to damage their data.
Human actions can also cause lost data, such as deleting the wrong folder or
formatting the wrong drive. Even a well-designed application can sometimes
cause its own files to become corrupt.
With so much at risk, you have everything to gain by allowing Safe & Sound
to automatically make backup copies for you. You simply decide what
information is important to you, how you want it to be backed up, and where
you want the backup copy to be stored. Safe & Sound takes care of the rest!
How Safe & Sound Creates Automatic Backups
When you select to have Safe & Sound automatically create a backup set for
you, it creates the first backup set while you are stepping through the Safe &
Sound Wizard. Thereafter, while the Enable Automatic Backup option is
selected, it continues to update your backup set at the time delay you’ve
specified. If you chose to make Mirror backups, Safe & Sound updates your
backup set at the same time that you resave the original source files.
If you select a write-behind delay longer than zero seconds (a Mirror backup),
Safe & Sound updates the backup set at any time after the specified time delay
when your PC is idle. This allows Safe & Sound to work in the background so
that it does not interrupt the work you are doing. This is a good option to use
with the protected volume file backup type since it eliminates any speed loss
due to more frequent disk accesses and larger file sizes associated with the
protected volume file backup type.