There are various ways doing backup. In this post, I will briefly walk through the options available.
1. Old School
The most easiest way to back up files is to use a USB flash memory stick or an external hard drive. Just connect it to your computer and copy the files over. The downside of this approach is that it is easy to forget to backup in the first place, and sometimes it is annoying.
2. Tivoli Storage Manager
The University provides a backup program and storage for graduate students and faculty members. The program they use is IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM). In contrast of the first old school approach, this is a massive professional solution to get backup done. It transfers the data on your computer to three different backup servers installed somewhere in the corners of the University network.
To use TSM, the computer should be connected to the University network directly, because of bandwidth issues. For instructions on how to setup a TSM backup for your computer, visit the HFS webpage of the OUCS.
3. Time Machine (for Mac)
Mac OS X 10.5, also called as Leopard, has a built-in automatic backup solution called the Time Machine. It supports over the network backup and external hard drives. (Unfortunately not USB sticks.) Also, it is easy to setup just flick a switch on the Time Machine panel.
For details visit, Time Machine features page, and this Time Machine How-To tutorial.
4. Distributed Revision Control (for Unix, Linux and Macs)
Personally I use this solution, because it is free and I can track changes of my files. It is recommended to people who mostly use text files, like TeX files or source files etc. I have written a post on how to make this work.
