Have you ever lost pictures, documents, downloaded music, or data? If so, you know all too well the frustration of data loss. To avoid this frustrating experience, one needs to consider a data backup strategy.
In June of 2006, the New York Times reported on a Microsoft research report stating that 9 out of 10 PC owners do not regularly back up their files. Statistically, it is not a matter of IF, but WHEN, your computer hard drive will fail. Therefore, unless losing your pictures, data, documents or music is of no consequence to you, computer backup is critical.
Imagine the overwhelming amount of time, effort and money it takes to recover a system from which files were destroyed by mechanical failure, a virus attack, or user error. Consider lost revenue simply because of downtime. When you commit to a backup, you avoid these unwelcome and frustrating expenses.
TYPES OF COMPUTER BACKUP
The traditional types of backup are as follows:
Full Backup‐ This form of backup will back up ALL the files on your hard drive and will mark each file as backed up.
Differential backup‐This form of backup will back up all the selected files that have changed since the most recent full or normal backup. If you DO frequently restore files to your system, a differential backup is the recommended option.
Incremental backup‐This form of backup will only backup files that have changed since your most recent backup. This is a much smaller and quicker backup than a full backup. For instance if you backup on a daily basis, a Wednesday backup will contain only those files that have changed since Tuesday. Incremental backup is recommended if you do NOT frequently restore files to your system.
WHAT SHOULD I BACKUP?
Make your life simple! You most likely do not need to spend hours to back up your entire hard disk.
Most of what is on your hard drive may not need to be backed up anyway. Applications such as Windows, word processors, games and internet software can be reloaded from the original disks; so, there is no need to back them up! To truly make your life simple, why not store all your data in a common folder? I have one data folder with subdirectories for all of my documents, my wife's documents, my graphics files, emails and so on.
TYPES OF BACKUP
One option is a backup to an external hard drive. External, portable USB 2.0 hard drives of 80 to 500 gigabytes or more are available. Some drives also come with Firewire connections for both PC and Macintosh to speed up data transfer. Portable drives can be quickly removed in an event of an emergency and can easily contain your entire business or home computing life.
For increased back up insurance, many users opt to keep a portable, external drive near the computer or server, and a second portable, external drive offsite. These portables drives can be rotated to keep them current. Market pricing for hard drives has drastically reduced to the point where owning two or even three external hard drives is affordable for most businesses and home computer owners.
At Northern Computer, we have a simple solution called “Click Free” that can do your backup to an external drive with the click of a mouse. Call or email us for more information.
Another option is to back up your hard drive to a DVD‐R/RW. Double layered DVD's can hold up to 8.5 gigabytes while single layer DVD can contain up to 4.7 gigabytes. For many small and home businesses, DVD‐RW's are all that is required, particularly when factoring in computer backup software compression.
To reiterate the benefit of the DVD option, one DVD‐R/RW may be able to back up everything on your hard drive for less than the cost of an external hard drive. DVD‐RW's can be marked for each day week (Monday, Tuesday and so forth) and rotated.
Is sending your data off to a company's hard drive backup service somewhere on the Internet a good option? Online backup solves the problem of offsite storage. Your data is safely stored elsewhere in the event that a fire, theft, flood, earthquake or other natural disaster should damage your office or home. Northern Computer offers an offsite service that starts as low as $25.00 a month.
BEST PRACTICES TO CONSIDER
A few things to consider when planning your backup include:
1. A copy of your important data/backups should be housed in at least in two separate geographical locations. The easiest way to minimize your risk is to create a full back up on an external USB hard disk and bring it to another place (e.g. your work/home, your parent’s house, a friend’s house…etc.).
2. Your data is only as safe as your latest backup. Perform backups frequently! It is recommended to use backup software to automate the backup process. The more convenient it is to create a backup, the more likely your backups will be up‐to‐date. Try to make the backup process as easy and painless as possible as the easier the process, the higher the probability that you will avoid the frustration of lost data.
3. Regularly check the integrity of your backup. When creating a backup for a longer time, be sure that the backups created can be restored. Don’t only create incremental backups. The more incremental steps you create, the higher the probability of compromising the integrity of the data. The recovery of an incremental backup needs every individual incremental step. If just one incremental file is damaged, the whole backup might be useless! A limited budget is no excuse for failing to back up your data; and when data loss occurs, you will wish you had at least used a USB drive as a minimum level of data safety.
I hope you find this article helpful when designing your individual backup strategy. Data safety always costs money. How much it costs, depends on your individual strategy and your tolerance for risk.
- Lauren G, Senior Account Manager
Northern Computer - Your Trusted Partner
#1 - 495 Banks Road Kelowna, BC V1X 6A2
Phone: 250.762.7753 Fax: 250.861.1861 Toll-Free: 1.877.257.2896
Email: sales@northerncomputer.ca or service@northerncomputer.ca
Web: http://www.northerncomputer.ca/
