Backing up your important data is crucial if you want to safe guard your data from potential loss. Data loss is a hard reality for many of us to swallow after it happens and if you haven’t experienced it yet, then it’s only a matter of time before you do. Taking steps now before it happens will ensure the peace of mind that your critical data is safe and can be restored with minimal time and effort. It can be next to impossible or expensive to recover your data once it’s been lost.

Data loss can occur for many different reasons: unintentionally deleting a file(s), power surge or natural disasters that could physically damage your hard drive, system crashes that could leave your computer inoperable, etc… 

 

Most of the time it can be unpredictable when data loss will occur so it’s essential that you have a plan in place for when it does occur.

 

What constitutes data backup? Is it just making a copy of your data and storing it on another hard drive? Hard drives fail all the time, is your data truly safe if the hard drive you have your data backed up to fails? It’s always best if possible to backup your data to a secure removable inert source, like CD/DVD, tape or external drive.  

 

What to backup?

 

The first step is to identify your important data that if lost would be detrimental to you personally or your business. Here are a few examples of files that would commonly be backed up.

• Document Files
• Image/Video Files
• Financial Files
• Email
• Music Files
• Databases

It’s unnecessary to back up Operating system files or Program files. These files can be restored from manufactures disks in the event of a critical failure. 

 

Where to put the data you backup?

 

There are several factors to consider before you can determine where your backed up data will reside

• Cost
• Reliability of backup
• Ease of use
• Storage location
• Downtime

All these factors come into play when deciding what media to use. Taking into consideration these factors will help you determine the best approach in backing up your data. We will take an in-depth look at several approaches that will work for the home and business owner. Keep in mind that all these approaches have there plus’s and minus’s.

 

 

THE HOME USER: Backup solutions for the home user

 

CD/DVD R/RW DRIVES: Writable CD/DVD drives make an inexpensive and practical way to back up your data at home, there limitation are dependent on the amount of data you require to backup. A typical CD will hold 650mb of data and a DVD 4.5gig of data. CD’s and DVD’s have a shelf life of 30 to 100 which is highly depended on several factors, keeping your Media stored in a cool, dry and dark place will go a long way in preserving your data.  

 

ADDITIONAL HARD DRIVE(S): Another option is to add an additional hard drive to your computer. Hard drives have come way down in price and are a inexpensive and reliable way of backing up your data. You can either add a hard drive internally to your PC or purchase a hard drive enclosure that will allow you to attach it to your USB, Firewire, RJ45 or eSATA port. ESATA has an advantage over USB or Firewire and RJ45 in that it triples the data transfer rate however it does require its own power source. All these External hard drive methods have the advantage of making the hard drive portable as well as relatively painless to install.

 

USB FLASH DRIVES: Flash memory can be a quick and easy way to back up data you access frequently. Its portability and ease of use make it a good choice for relatively small amounts of data between 1 and 10 gig, 

IMPORTANT As with any backup solution you need to periodically verify the reliability of your backups. You should reload the information you backup to your computer to ensure its integrity.

 

THE BUSINESS USER: Backup solutions for the small business owner

 All the options for the home user can come into play for the small business user. However there are several more options that make it worthwhile for small business to consider due to the critical nature of the data being backed up. A business user also has to consider a data backup solution that takes into consideration a solution for backing up multiple computers in a networked environment.  

 

 

As with any business it’s critical that you develop and maintain a disaster recovery plan in case your data is lost. However that’s a topic for another day that we won’t go into detail in this article. I have listed some resources at the end of this article for creating an effective disaster recovery plan.

 

As with any backup solution, it’s important to consider the worst case scenario. What if a fire or flood decimated your business premises, would you be able to recovery your business data so your business would be back up in running in short order? It’s imperative that the data you backup is stored off premises, in an offsite storage facility, if that is not possible then in a secure/fire proof safe onsite.  

 

TAPE BACKUP: Tape backup has been around for a long time and is a very reliable solution. They have the capacity to store large amounts of information and are very portable to store offsite. The downside is that they are slow and are susceptible to environmental hazards like heat and magnetized so optimum storage environment is critical for longevity of media.

 

RAID: redundant computer hardware. What I recommend for small business is to use RAID-1. This type of raid is called disk mirroring and the advantage is it provides Fault Tolerance, so if one hard drive crashes you won’t lose all your data because the data is mirrored on the other disk. There are other forms of Raid one can implement but Raid 1 is by far the most common implemented and least complex of the bunch. To understand all there is to Raid I suggest you visit Arstechnica for a in-depth article on raid.  

 

OFFLINE: Outsource, Internet based solution – Outsourcing your data to a third party can be beneficial to some especially those who live in areas prone to natural disasters, knowing that your data is protected and secure in an offsite location. A high speed internet connection is required for this method. This method can be expensive, usually occurring a monthly charge but can provide security and reduce the cost of purchasing additional hardware and support.

 

NAS: Network attached storage, Nas allows the backup/storage of multiple computers on a network environment. A NAS device is usually always on which has an advantage over a traditional backup approach of attaching a external drive to a computer as you don’t have to keep your computer(s) on and system performance is not degraded while backing up your data.

 

Additional Considerations

DRIVE IMAGING: Another method of backing up your data is called drive imaging and will take a snapshot of your entire drive. If in an event that your system is lost then you can restore your entire system the way it was since your last snapshot, Operating system and all your data files will be intact so you don’t have to reinstall any operating system files or program files. It’s a handy way of backing up your entire system and saving you some time from having to rebuild your system from scratch. Drive Imaging can be used in conjunction with daily backing ups Providing a means of quickly restoring your system to full functionality in case your hard drive fails and you lose your Operating system and application files.  

 

 

ORGONIZING YOUR DATA: To make backing up your data easer I suggest you come up with a plan to organize your data so it’s consolidated into one location. Many applications save there data to specific default locations on the hard drive. Consolidating your files to one location, for example your My documents folder will save you time when you have to search for all those files you need to backup, all you would have to do is backup your My documents folder and all your files from your different application would be backed up.

 

ANITIVIRUS: You can’t consider a backup solution without considering protecting your data from Virus’s. A backup plan is only as good as your weakest link.

  

 

 

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