As midterm season approaches and the lists of assignments grow, tired eyes reveal long nights of homework and waiting for the library printers to spew out assignments sent to print hours earlier.
The more work students put into their papers, the more exasperated they are when computers crash and 12-page world civilization papers disappear. And unfortunately for many students, this is not an uncommon occurrence.
"There have been times in the past where there has been a power surge, and I have lost all my material that I was working on," said Brett Richter, a senior communication major. "Nowadays I back everything up on more than one medium."
With reliance on computer technology increasing constantly, saving computer-generated work, or backing-up the system, has become a necessity. But which methods are most cost-efficient and reliable?
"Floppy disks are the worst medium to use," said Matthew Shelton, assistant Computing and Information Technology Help Desk manager. "It is old technology that is very unstable. They are fragile and very easily broken."
Andrea Jacobs, a senior communication major, can attest to the fragility of floppy disks.
"There have been times where I have broken disks just by keeping them in my book bag," she said.
There are, however, affordable and reliable alternatives to save work without costly hardware purchases.
Through the UB computer network, each student can save data through a program called UBFSHome. The program allows students to save material through UB's network.
"Think of it as having 15 megabytes of hard drive space that you can access at any time, from anywhere," said Shelton.
This is the most reliable and cost-effective way of ensuring that data is stored and protected, according to Shelton. Students can access saved files by going to the program's Web site at https://webdfs.buffalo.edu.
"I have used this system in the past, and it has proved to be very reliable and consistent," said Philip Nosal, a senior management information systems major.
Those who have yet to embrace the free UB technology continue to use other means to save their work.
"Zip drives are great to use but very expensive to buy," said Andy Roaldi, a graduate student in the Computer Engineering department.
According to the Hewlett-Packard Web site, an external zip-disk drive requiring a USB cable drive costs $50. A six-foot cable, bought through the Web site, costs $18.
One zip-disk costs $11, according to the UB Micro Web site. The disks store one megabyte of information.
Although the costs can quickly add up, some students are willing to pay in the name of convenience and because of the technologies reliability.
"I spent a lot of money on my zip drive and it has proved really helpful to me," said Brett Rinella, a senior communication major. "Zip drives are terrific if you can get past the price and are willing to spend a decent amount of money."
A more cost-effective and equally reliable medium to back up files is CD-R drives.
"CD burners are a great way of saving files," said Shelton. "They are a lot more stable than floppy disks while being cheaper and more widely used than zip drives."
Blank CDs are generally not expensive when bought in bulk and are easy and effective for backing up files. However, many blank CDs can only be burned once and additional information cannot be saved after burning. Re-writable CDs can be purchased, albeit at a higher cost.
According to Shelton, many word processing programs also have features designed to save work as it is done.
"That way, if your computer ever freezes or stops working for a time, you can retrieve your data just by opening the word processing software which you were originally using," he said.
Whatever medium students use to save their work, it is important to realize that no method is guaranteed. All technologies, whether old or new, have advantages and disadvantages
"The best thing to do is always have back up files of your back up files," said Shelton. "That way you have all your bases covered."
