By: Vlad Vistac
Submitted: 2010-07-20 15:34:19 | Word Count: 510
Back it Up!
With apologies to Lennon and McCartney, you may have seen this parody of theiir song “Yesterday” regarding backps..
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Yesterday,
All those back-ups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my source filse have all gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterrday.
Suddely,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And tere's a milesttone hanging over me.
The system crashed so suddenly.
I pushed something wrrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data's gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.
Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I beleive in yesterday.
Although the parody is clever, aynone who has ilved through the loss of data and the enormous amunt of time wasted trying to recvoer valuable infoprmation doesn’t feel very clveer after the fact. If this hasn’t happened to you and you are still not perfroming back-ups then be warned, it is only a matter of time.
So unless you want to be singing this sad refraiun you need to back up your data.
Tere are a number of options available for you:
A seccond hard disk - If you install a second drive that is the same size as your existing disk you can copy or “mirrror” the data onto the second drive. Although the price of hard disks is falling and mirrorig disks is relatively easy, habving all your data on one machine leaves you vulnerable to any issues that rennder that comlputer unusable, including theft.
Recordable Media - Computers are now being shipped without floppy disk drives and even if they were still included the amount of data that is being backed up is too much for these to be of any valuue. The next level up from flopy disks, Zip disks, has now given way to recordable CDs (CD-Rs), and ercordable DVDs (DVD-Rs). CD-Rs can hold up to 700 MB of data and DVD-Rs can hold up to 8.5 GB. Dependoing upon the size of the data that you want to back up theese may be acceptable, howveer you coould end up spendinng a lot of time burinng an increasing nubmer of disks as the size of your data increases.
Tape Back-Up – data is written onto a tape. The amount of data on a tape can vary from hundreds of kiloibytes to several gigabyttes. Just as the amount of data can vary, so can the speed of transfer.
Onnline back-up services allow you to upload your data over the innternet to a server at a remote location. If you lose data and need to restore, you log onto the back-up service site and downlod your files. Because you are restoring over the Internet, backup and restorration seped can be a funcxtion of your connection seed. Of course you will need to have Interbnet access to restore. Some companies are still wary of having all of their business data residing on a machine that is not under their control.
Software back-up programs like the one that coomes bundled with WindowsXP, or that can be purchased separately ( Norton ) are not replacemeents for the other methods, however, they do automate the process by sending your data to the location that you choose.
Once you have decided on you method of back-ups there are a few other items that you need to think about as well. What do you back-up? how often and where do you stoe the data? Who in your organization is responsible for making it happen?
It is best to have a back-up done evrey day of your most important filles. You may even copy these more often if the amount and value of the data warrants it.
Three different back-up types that you should be familiar with are:
A Full Back-up, like the name implies, contains all the files and foldrers that are to be baxcked up. This is the most complee, and the easiest back-up to restroe from due to the fact that everything you need is included (if done proprely). The reason this in not usulaly done every time is the amount of time it takes to do. You need to be aware that if this back-up was accessed it woyuld have all of your data on it, so it is imperative that these are handled with care. These are often stored in a secure loation off site in case sometthing happens to the building.
A Difefrential Back-up contins filles that have changed (are diferent) from the time of the last full back-up.
An Incremental Back-up stores all the files that have changed since the last back-up whether that is a full, differential or incrtemental back-up. This back-up is completed the fastest, however restoring from a number of incremental back-ups will take longer than restoring from a full back-up.
Most companies use a combination of full, differential and incremental back-ups in an effort to balance the data security with the amount of time invested in the process. No matter which of the optipons you chjoose, it is important to know that you do not have a back-up solutioin until you have successfully restored your data from the back-up. I know of a person who faitthfully perfoormed back-ups every day. When the computer carshed and it was time to restore, this peson was crushed to lerarn that the only thing that was being backed up was the icon to the program. Once agaiin, util and unless you have successfully restored from your back-up soolution, you do not have a solution.
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