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Hard Disk | Floppy Disks | Zip Disks | CDs | Home Directory
There are basically five places you can store your
digital files--writing you've done, pictures you've scanned, and so on: to your hard disk, to floppy disks, to Zip disks, to CDs, and on a server. I recommend that
you save your files on a University server by using the Home Directory Service; read to the end of this page to discover why.
Hard Disk
Your computer's hard drive, designated C:\ , is the main workspace for most of us. If you use more than one computer and keep storing your files on different hard disks, you've undoubtedly been inconvenienced by having to move files around all the time via removable media or by wanting to work on a file on grounds that's on your home computer. Using the University's Home Directory Service is a great way to solve this problem.
Also, and more importantly, if your hard disk is the only place you store your files,
those files are in danger of being lost. If you maintain your computer regularly (using the tips on the page Nurturing Your Computer ), the likelihood that your
computer will fail, will break, will die, is not very large. But in the event of a serious system crash, you will wish with all your heart you had backed up your files
somewhere, anywhere other than your hard disk.
Your system files also live on your hard disk, and these too should be backed up. There are several free programs available for download that will help you back up your system: see
to read about and obtain these programs.
Floppy Disks
The 3 1/2" floppy disk was for many years the storage option of choice. Floppy
disks are cheap and easy to use, and of course they also let you move your files from one computer to another. I myself until recently was in the habit of creating
two floppy disks every semester that were copies of the files on my hard disk; I used these throughout the semester to back up my data and then retired them in a
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle lunchbox at the end of the semester. (Not as silly as it sounds; lunchboxes are perfect floppy disk size.)
If you are currently using floppy disks to back up your data (or, heaven forbid, the
antiquated 5 1/4" disks), you should be aware 1) that floppy disks may go bad after a few years, and 2) that some new computers are no longer built with floppy drives.
It's a good thing that I made two floppy copies of each semester's work, because
recently I went back and checked my "archives," and fully one out of five floppy disks had at least some corrupted data on it, after only 5-10 years. This is because
floppy disks use magnetic tape, which somehow goes bad after awhile. Like tofu.
As for the disappearance of floppy drives, consider this: no Macintosh computers
now come with a floppy drive. Not any of them. As for PCs, on Dell's web site is a white paper on "Removable Media Storage Devices" that strongly hints that floppy
drives will soon go the way of the dinosaur in that company, too. (Holographic data storage, anyone? Read the article if you think I'm kidding.)
The other common charge against floppies is that they don't hold very much. A
standard floppy diskette holds less than 2 Mb of data; Zip disks and CDs hold 100
to 800 Mb of data. For us this may not matter so much, since we mainly produce text and text doesn't take up much data space, but it's a point to consider.
Zip Disks
"Zip" is a proprietary name, unlike the other names on this page; Zip disks are made by a company called Iomega. One unfortunate wrinkle is that compressed files also happen to be called zip (or zipped) files, so that many people think that you have to save zip files to a zip disk. This is not the case: Zip disks and zip files have
nothing to do with one another.
That said, Zip disks are basically a lot like floppy disks, except they're larger both
physically and virtually. Zip disks come with a 100 Mb capacity or a 250 Mb capacity; and Zip drives also come in these two sizes. The 250 Mb Zip drives can
read the 100 Mb Zip disks, but the 100 Mb Zip drives can't read the 250 Mb Zip disks.
Zip disks are a pretty good option for backup, not only because they're about as
available around grounds and hold more data than floppies, but also because they reportedly take longer to decay. Like floppies, however, they're magnetic tape
devices, so they will decay. (Videotapes will, too, you know.) Zip disks are also kind of expensive--more so than the newer, larger, and more reliable CDs. They run $10-$15 apiece, even at Cavalier Computers.
Compact Disks (CDs)
The main problem with saving files to CDs is that you have to have both a special, expensive CD drive and special, expensive software. Most computers these days
do come with a CD drive, but these are usually read-only, meaning that they can only read CDs and can't write (or "burn") to them. (Oliver Sacks has no doubt
encountered and perhaps written about people who can read but can't write.)
Also, I've now encountered doomsayers on the web prophesying that CDs too will
decay in about 20 years, but most agree (at the moment) that the data written to a CD will last much longer than data written to floppies and Zips. Moreover, CDs hold
a lot of data (600 - 800 Mb) and are relatively inexpensive, running maybe $2 apiece. And if you do have CD-burning equipment, you can also make your own
audio CDs. How fun is that? (Just take some time to muse on copyright and copywrong).
Home Directory Service
Here's where it gets interesting. Students, staff members, and faculty at the
University of Virginia can now avail themselves of a marvelous perk called the Home Directory Service. It works like this: we're all automatically allotted a wedge
of space on one of the University's main servers, the much-beloved Blue
(blue.unix.virginia.edu). Undergrads get 75 Mb, grad students get 100 Mb, and faculty and staff get 125Mb. Since not everyone's making full use of their allotted
space, you can also get a bit more if you ask; I got my server space bumped up to 150 Mb.
The server is 1) an extremely safe place to save your files, since it is maintained by
experts, kept in a climate-controlled environment, and so on; 2) an extremely convenient central place to save your files, since you can send files there and get
them back again from any networked computer that you happen to be working on; and 3) an extremely free place to save your files. As in, it doesn't cost anything.
There is, of course, limited space on Blue, but the standard allotment is plenty for
those of us who work chiefly in text. My entire life in data before I got into this whole tech thing took up only 63 Mb of space. If you start a huge multimedia
project, you can get additional space on other University servers pretty much for the asking. See
for a list of web servers; the Faculty server (faculty.virginia.edu) is a great place to start looking for additional space. You can also purchase more space on Blue if you
like.
One disadvantage to using the Home Directory Service as a primary form of backup is that your computer does have to be connected to the Internet. This might be a
drag if you don't yet have an Internet connection at home, or if you're working from home on a slow modem, though I still use the University dialup lines and I haven't had any trouble.
How, you may ask, do I send files to the server? How do I get them back again? If
you have a Mac that's running OS X, there's a "Connect" command in one of the main menus. Simple as pie. If you have a Mac that's running an earlier operating system, or a PC running Windows, you need a program that will enable you to transfer files back and forth. UVA provides several free programs that do this, one or more of
which is no doubt already installed on the on-grounds computer that you use. These programs are called FTP programs, and can be downloaded from the ITC web site.
For Mac, you'll need Fetch; for Windows, you can use either Secure_FX or WS_FTP , or you can use  a cooler and easier program called the Home Directory Service
login program (only available for Windows). When you use this
program to connect to your home directory on Blue, an extra drive (usually designated as the J:\
drive) appears as if by magic on your computer. You can then work with files on the server just as you would work with files on your hard drive or on a floppy
disk--by using My Computer or Windows Explorer.
Click on the names of the programs above to download them from the ITC web site.
They are also available from ITC on a CD, which you can obtain by visiting the ITC Help Desk Wilson Hall room 235. Be sure to bring your valid UVa picture ID card
or your driver's license. For more specific instructions on how to use file-transfer (FTP) programs, see the page on this site concerning Transferring Files.
To get started using the Home Directory Service, visit the following URL:
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