Originally
posted 24 February, 2006
Your data is the most valuable single item on your computer. Without
access to your data, your business will stop and you may lose years
of important information and personal memories. All homes and businesses
need to have a backup strategy.
The important factors to look for in backup systems are reliability,
portability, cost and size. You need a backup device big enough
to save your important data, it needs to reliable and backups should
e portable enough to store away from the computer in the case of
a fire or other building damage. Cost is always a major concern
but you should remember that lost data is priceless.
In this article we look at the hardware. The
software you can use we've put in a separate article. With the
hardware, we’ll start with the smallest and simplest.
Flash Drives
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For
individual users, the USB flash drive is one of the easiest
ways to backup smaller and personal information. It’s also
useful for specialist programs like accounting packages. We
recommend flash drives for all home and home businesses.
Pros:
Cheap, portable and easy to use.
Cons:
Relatively small capacity and high cost per meg of storage.
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DVD Burner
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CD
and DVD burners are the standby for most home and small business
users with up to 8G capacity available on a dual layer DVD.
We recommend new computers come with a DVD burner. External
DVD burners can be plugged into a USB or Firewire port.
Pros:
Standard format and portable
Cons:
Burning software is not always user friendly, there are
concerns about long term storage of disks.
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Portable Hard
drive
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Portable
hard drives are small enough to fit in a purse or shirt pocket.
These are ideal for smaller offsite data storage. Simply copy
your important data to the drive and take it home!
Pros:
Relatively high capacity, portable.
Cons:
High cost per meg compared to full size hard drives and
tape.
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External Drives
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We recommend external
drives as the first stage of a full business data backup strategy.
Every evening all your data is copied onto it. In the event
of the computer failing you can plug the drive into another
computer and continue working without interruption.
Pros:
Easy to setup and use. Cheap cost per meg.
Cons:
Not so portable.
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Tape Backup
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In
the case of a catastrophe such as a fire or flood, offsite
backup is essential. For businesses we find tape backup offers
the best balance of portability and ease of backup. A scheduled
rotating ten tape backup also ensures up to a month’s
data is always recoverable. We find tape and external drives
used together are an excellent business disaster recovery
strategy.
Pros:
Easily automated, tapes are portable
Cons:
Expensive purchase price, tape software is NEVER user friendly.
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Backup
needs vary with the needs of the individual computer user or business
The best backup strategies use a combination of onsite and offsite
storage. The important thing is that you can get your important
data quickly when you need it.
