Back up (make copies of) your data often. Here are some reasons and suggestions.
• What is the difference between Save, AutoSave, Save As,
Revert to Saved, and Save & Log?
All of these commands control techniques you can employ to ensure that you will not lose the work you have done on your Collection.
Save will cause a new Collection to be saved to disk. Until Save is chosen, none of your work will be permanently stored. Thereafter, either Save or AutoSave will serve to update this Collection on the disk to reflect new work.
AutoSave is the only one of these commands which is not found under the File menu; it is found under the Set menu. The command is used to automatically perform Save operations on a periodic basis. AutoSave will bring the current (open) Collection up to date, and will protect your work from loss. You can enable or disable AutoSave, and you can also indicate how long Helix should wait before initiating an AutoSave. When AutoSave is on, it also will activate to clear memory full conditions, thereby keeping Helix from slowing down in such a restrictive environment.
Save As creates a copy of the open Collection (with all changes made up to this point) which becomes the current “working” file. The original Collection is closed, and is not updated with any changes since the last Save. After doing a Save As, the Collection you will be working with will not be the Collection you originally opened.
Revert to Saved discards any changes you have made and restores you to the last Saved version of the Collection.
Save & Log brings the Collection up to date (Save), and will initiate a log file. This command is available in Custom Mode only. The log file created by the Save & Log command is a file of data transactions which can be loaded into a Collection in the event of a system failure. The log file protects your work from loss if you crash between Saves.
• Why should I back up?
To avoid as much pain and grief as possible, keep your backup Collection as up to date as is feasible. A further (and essential) step is to keep extra copies of your Collections on other diskettes. This protects you in the event of an accident (your dog eats it) to your data disk.
Hard-disks should always be fully backed-up as well. Hard-disk failures often mean that you lose all of the data stored on them.
Desk accessories can increase the chances for a crash. Although desk accessories offer a wide and useful variety of features, some are more reliable than others. If using desk accessories, be especially vigilant and prepared.
• How many backups should I make, and how often?
The number and depth of your backups depend upon the degree to which you rely on your Collection. The more important it is, the harder to recreate, the more costly if lost, then the more backups you should have.
The degree of backup protection you choose can range from a set of daily or even hourly backups that comprise a file going back a year or more (for critical, valuable data), to one backup a week or month (meaning you are perfectly willing to lose a week or month’s worth of work).
A good, workable plan (that conserves diskettes) is to have multiple sets of backup disks. Each day, a backup is made, reusing the oldest set. This protects you from erasing your only good backup, only to find an error occurred. Archive a backup set at least once a month, and introduce new diskettes to take its place. Also keep a copy off-site if possible.
