Maintaining t he System D-1

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Proper use of preventive maintenance p rocedures can keep t he system in top operat -
ing condition and minimize the need for costly, time-consuming service procedures.
This appendix contains maintenance procedures that you should perform regularly.

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Eve ryone inadvertently deletes f iles at on e ti me o r another. Also, h ard -di sk dri ves ca n
f ail after extend ed use , so i t is no t a que stion of
whether
yo u wil l e v ent ua lly lo se da ta,
but
when
. To avoid such loss of data, you should regularly make backup copies of all
hard-disk drive files. Frequent, regular backups are a must for anyone using a hard-
disk drive.
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The frequency with which backups should be made depends on the amount of stor-
age space on a hard-disk drive and the volatility of the data contained on the drive.
Heavily us ed s yste ms require mor e freq ue nt backups than syst em s in which files are
seldom changed.
Dell recommends that you back up the hard-disk drive at least once a week, with a
daily backup of those files known to have been changed. Following these guidelines
ensures the los s of no more than a day’s wo rk in the ev ent of a hard-disk dr ive f ai lure
or if you inadvertently delete one or more import ant files.
As further insurance against data losses, you should keep duplicate copies of the
weekly and monthly backups at an off-site location. Doing this ensures that you lose
no more than a week’s work, even if one of the on-site backups becomes corrupted.
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Tape drives are fast, convenient, and aff ordable devices that can back up data at rates
of up to 1.6 megabytes per second (MB/sec) (sustained, with data compression) and
can often run unattended. Dell offers tape drives with storage capacities in the range
of 200 MB to 8 gigabytes (GB) per tape cartridge and recommends these drives and
their associated backup software for use as system backup devices.