Data Backup Basics

With hardware failures, power surges, disasters and human errors we should all be in agreement that data backups are a must for everyone but the extent to which you pursue them and the tools you use can be a careful balance between the importance of the data, cost and time investment.

What are your backup options?

There will be obvious differences between the tools available to an individual with a laptop and a corporate network, but given the fact that larger organizations should already have some form of redundancy built into their networks, it really comes down to the need to store data in a remote location.

Just as we’d recommend against a larger organization storing their backups in-house we’d recommend against an individual doing it as well. Don’t do it. Although most would argue the majority of data loss does not occur as a result of a local disaster like a fire, theft or flood, there is no reason to gamble that a data backup won’t be affected parallel to the loss of the data it was meant to protect.

That said, what are the best options for remotely storing data? The good news is the technology we have developed to stuff enormous amounts of data into a tiny area has far exceeded our gluttony of available space. In the 90’s individuals found themselves backing up their important data to floppy disks and CD’s while larger networks generally utilized tape backup systems. In our day and age, an affordable thumbdrive may have a storage capacity of over 100 Gb.

When your only mandate is to distance your backups from your primary data location any type of offsite storage will suffice but we’d recommend the following – from least to most recommended: burnable media like CD’s or DVD’s, thumbdrives, single drive external storage devices, multidisc raid-capable storage devices & 3rd party remote data backup services.

While our increased capacity to store media can make our backups more cost effective, our increased ability to transfer files remotely has allowed the utilization of remote data backup solutions. There is even an evolution within that field allowing a promising few like Absorb.com the ability to offer custom office virtualization and true business continuity.