Is a data backup solution part of your computer plans? Do you have a way to protect yourself if something goes wrong with your computer or data? Computers are a useful part of our lives but we don't always protect ourselves from their loss be it fire, theft or hardware failure. We often don't consider how fragile our computer data really is. Do you keep sensitive information on your computer that you would be upset if you lost it? Not sure? Consider this. If I told you that I was going to format your hard drive right now and you will lose all of the information on your computer, would you be ready? Or would you need to get a few files first... If you are in the second group, chances are you don't have a proper data backup solution in place to help you handle disasters. What happens if your computers are stolen? I recently had a business colleague of mine who's office was robbed and who had all of his computers stolen. He naturally felt helpless and victimized over the situation. What was especially frustrating was that he thought he had taken the proper measures to secure his office. He had a good security system in place, had secured his premises and yet they were still able to cut his phone lines, disable his alarm and have their way in his office. Don't think a computer theft can happen to you? Guess again. It can happen to anyone even if you don't own a business. Computer hard drives do crash If theft doesn't get your computer, a hard drive failure certainly might. Hard drives are the devices in your computer that store the information on your computer. Your computers' long term memory if you will. They are built with rotating mechanical parts. These parts break down. If they break down, your data can be gone. Are you prepared? Data on a hard drive can often be recovered by expert data retrieval houses but their prices usually start at $10,000 and up. Want to avoid such costly recovering options? Establish a data backup solution. A fire can wipe out your computers and your data If computer theft or hard drive failure don't destroy the data on your computers, a fire certainly might. This threat speaks to an off site backup storage solution. While the first two can be averted by simply burning a CD of your most critical data, fire can destroy your CD's too if they aren't stored off site. Fire is just one more reason why a data backup solution needs to be a part of your vocabulary and your action plan. Protecting your data just makes good commonsense, if you have data that you don't want to loose and most of us do you owe it to yourself to protect your data.
About the Author
Joe Camarda is an expert on data storage and backup methods. Find out more about his expertise at http://www.westcliffassociates.com
Tuesday 30 September 2008
Monday 1 September 2008
What is the Best Method to Back up Data?
Author: James Walsh
This being the age of internet, chat rooms, blogging and innovative hackers, their expectation never gets fulfilled. The news always leaks out or is methodically publicised by a rival or a gleeful hacker. Thereafter, insult is added to their injury as irate customers and the eager press demand explanations about every unsavoury detail of the incident. But data loss is not a problem affecting only the big players only any more. All of us deal with some amount of data and almost all of it is important to us. Albums have been replaced by .jpeg files, our music is inside the hard drive of our pc or laptop, and our emails are stored in offline folders or software like Microsoft Outlook. Students keep their study material in their machines, and a doctoral thesis is usually a file on the hard disk instead of being a thick volume bound in leather covers. It is, therefore, strange that we keep losing data because we have not taken the precaution of backing it up elsewhere. Several start-up home businesses have not seen the light of the day anymore after an initial incident of data loss. All of this underlines the importance of backup, which really cannot be overstressed.
Some Methods of Obtaining Backups
The method, or rather, the medium chosen for backing up data will depend on the volume of data to be stored, as well as the nature of the data. Some common methods are being enlisted below:
CD and Floppy: The floppy has largely gone out of use by now, due to its many limitations, small capacity and security problems. The CD is a good choice for obtaining backups, and is one of the favourite choices in both domestic and corporate spheres. It is cheap, readily available, portable and compatible with several file formats. Storing a CD and sharing information from it are also quite simple.
DVD: The DVD is a good choice for storing audio visual information. It may not be as cheap as the CD, but offers better quality, often lasts longer, and has way more space. DVD RWs can be used in such a way that literally every bit is used to store information. A DVD also has the same facilities when it comes to sharing and easy transporting. However, the DVD RW, many market observers feel, may turn out to be an intermediate technology and be replaced by something superior but very similar in function, or may evolve in such a way that the problems would get solved. It must be noted here that the constant research in this regard, and inventions like the Blue Ray disk etc. point out that we can hope for a better technology soon.
USB Devices: These are the new favourites all over the world. The greatest proof of the popularity of this technology lies in two facts. Firstly, the storage space of pen drives / flash drives/ memory sticks is constantly increasing. Secondly, their prices are plummeting downwards rapidly. Almost all kinds of files can be stored on these; they are very easy to carry, do not require a separate software or booting up of the machine to start functioning, and it is very convenient to share the data stored on them. For storing smaller music libraries, an iPod may be an option too.
External Hard Drives: For larger data storage requirements, external hard drives are excellent solutions. Arrays or stacks of hard drives are available for corporate purposes and are provided by all good hard drive manufacturers. Seagate, Maxtor, ASB, LaCie all make external hard drives of varying capacities and prices.
Online and Offline Storage Spaces: These are ‘spaces’ provided by professional firms, and are extremely secure for sensitive data storage.
Tapes and Printouts: Traditional storage should not be left out of the list. There is some information that one simply needs to see on the good old piece of paper. Tape has been in use for a long time now, and will probably continue for some time.
About The Author:
James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk
This being the age of internet, chat rooms, blogging and innovative hackers, their expectation never gets fulfilled. The news always leaks out or is methodically publicised by a rival or a gleeful hacker. Thereafter, insult is added to their injury as irate customers and the eager press demand explanations about every unsavoury detail of the incident. But data loss is not a problem affecting only the big players only any more. All of us deal with some amount of data and almost all of it is important to us. Albums have been replaced by .jpeg files, our music is inside the hard drive of our pc or laptop, and our emails are stored in offline folders or software like Microsoft Outlook. Students keep their study material in their machines, and a doctoral thesis is usually a file on the hard disk instead of being a thick volume bound in leather covers. It is, therefore, strange that we keep losing data because we have not taken the precaution of backing it up elsewhere. Several start-up home businesses have not seen the light of the day anymore after an initial incident of data loss. All of this underlines the importance of backup, which really cannot be overstressed.
Some Methods of Obtaining Backups
The method, or rather, the medium chosen for backing up data will depend on the volume of data to be stored, as well as the nature of the data. Some common methods are being enlisted below:
CD and Floppy: The floppy has largely gone out of use by now, due to its many limitations, small capacity and security problems. The CD is a good choice for obtaining backups, and is one of the favourite choices in both domestic and corporate spheres. It is cheap, readily available, portable and compatible with several file formats. Storing a CD and sharing information from it are also quite simple.
DVD: The DVD is a good choice for storing audio visual information. It may not be as cheap as the CD, but offers better quality, often lasts longer, and has way more space. DVD RWs can be used in such a way that literally every bit is used to store information. A DVD also has the same facilities when it comes to sharing and easy transporting. However, the DVD RW, many market observers feel, may turn out to be an intermediate technology and be replaced by something superior but very similar in function, or may evolve in such a way that the problems would get solved. It must be noted here that the constant research in this regard, and inventions like the Blue Ray disk etc. point out that we can hope for a better technology soon.
USB Devices: These are the new favourites all over the world. The greatest proof of the popularity of this technology lies in two facts. Firstly, the storage space of pen drives / flash drives/ memory sticks is constantly increasing. Secondly, their prices are plummeting downwards rapidly. Almost all kinds of files can be stored on these; they are very easy to carry, do not require a separate software or booting up of the machine to start functioning, and it is very convenient to share the data stored on them. For storing smaller music libraries, an iPod may be an option too.
External Hard Drives: For larger data storage requirements, external hard drives are excellent solutions. Arrays or stacks of hard drives are available for corporate purposes and are provided by all good hard drive manufacturers. Seagate, Maxtor, ASB, LaCie all make external hard drives of varying capacities and prices.
Online and Offline Storage Spaces: These are ‘spaces’ provided by professional firms, and are extremely secure for sensitive data storage.
Tapes and Printouts: Traditional storage should not be left out of the list. There is some information that one simply needs to see on the good old piece of paper. Tape has been in use for a long time now, and will probably continue for some time.
About The Author:
James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk
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