Backing Up and Files on Floppy Disks
Problem and Recommendations of Using Floppy Disks

When possible, do not save your important files directly to floppy disks.  With files becoming larger and file systems becoming more complicated, saving your important files to disk may be asking for problems.  Some software programs such as databases will keep the files open and will close them only when you exit the programs.   Removing the disk prematurely may leave the file open and inaccessible later.  I have witnessed more and more situations where floppy disks have gone bad and as a result, files are lost.  Fortunately in some of these cases, these files were recovered using a disk utility program such as Norton Utilities.

With hard drives becoming larger and larger, saving directly to the hard drive is recommended.  Another advantage is access to the hard disk drive is much faster.  Use floppy disks only for backing up files, transporting or distribution.


Backup Strategies
The more important your data, the more sophisticated your backup procedure should be.  Here are some suggestions.

Back up to more than one disk
    - if data changes daily, back up on a weekly cycle using one disk or set for everyday of the week.
    - label your back up disks, tapes, CD's
 
For critical files, keep backups in another location.
    - ensure against fire, theft and other concerns against loss of backup media