.: Data Backup - Do you have a backup and data recovery plan in place
By:Mozza
Category:Home / Computers / Data Recovery
Data backup is rarely a part of a home computer user’s or business IT administrator’s plans, we all say it will never happen to me or my company, but in reality we are just mentally preparing for the time we lose our data. Its like trying to stop smoking, we all know we should do it but will find every excuse not to. So be honest with yourself and ask yourself the question, do you have a backup plan for your data, or more importantly, do you have a restore plan which will protect your business should something go wrong? All business leaders and owners will now tell you that computers are way past being a useful part of our lives, but now they are an absolute necessity. We acknowledge the data which resides on our computer infrastructure is the most important asset of any organization. I ask again, what would happen if you lost your data and what are you doing to protect it?
The reasons for data loss are endless, human intervention, hardware failure, software failure, natural disaster, loss, theft, we can go on, but we can be sure of one thing, as time goes by the list will get longer and longer.
Ever had anything stolen or lost anything before?
I have been in the IT industry for some 25 years now, and as you can imagine, I have heard some bizarre stories of how computers and servers have been stolen. Laptops stolen from back seats of cars (data lost), a colleague forgot he left his laptop on the roof of his car; problem is he realized when he was 160 miles down the road (lost data). My friend’s office was broken in twice in two nights, first time resulted in loss of desktop computers and totally trashed alarm system (some data loss), and second night was to take the servers along with the backup device and media! Apparently the heavy stuff was stolen the second night as the thief’s had more time due to the alarm not being repaired quickly enough (total data loss and company ceased trading within 8 months). Save yourself money; prevent data loss in the first place by implementing a data backup plan.
Hardware Failure
If you have managed to never lose your laptop or have you whole IT infrastructure stolen then well done, so now let’s prepare ourselves for hardware failure. There are mainly only three mechanical parts within a laptop, computer or server; 1) hard drive, 2) backup drive 3) CD or DVD. Hard drives do fail and if it has not happen yet it will. Don’t get me wrong, if you take a failed drive to an expert, they will probably get most of your data back (phew) but expect to pay in excess of £5000 for the pleasure (not phew). Save yourself money; prevent data loss in the first place by implementing a data backup plan.
Fire or Disaster (natural or not).
I live in the UK, it’s a lovely place as we don’t have issues with forest fires, earth quakes, and hurricanes etc. so there will never be any large natural disaster which will wipe out the majority of a city. This is what I thought until the Bunsfield oil refinery blew up and flattened everything within a 3 mile radius. There are a million and one reasons and scenarios I can give you illustrating why you should backup your business data. We all know the practice of data backup is nothing more than good common sense. Mission critical or sensitive data you don't want or can not afford to lose should be secured. PROTECT YOUR DATA! If you honestly think you do not need to backup your data because you will never lose it, please stop reading this article now and go and do something less boring.
Let’s talk about the various ways of securing your data and other backup services. If you take the following on board you will be able to find the solution which will best suit you or your company.
Backup to CD solution.
To backup your file data to CD is easy, it may be time consuming to do this every night and you will have to be disciplined to put up to an hour aside to carry out this task every night. To backup data to a CD drive is not an automated process and we all know people get busy. Once you have backed your data to CD please always verify that the data is actually on the CD and then take it home with you. There is no point leaving it to be stolen or destroyed by fire along with your hardware.
Please do not us a CD to archive data (safe documents for a long time) as I would not expect this form of media to remain stable for more than 2 years.
Backing up to CD has many limitations but it is certainly better than not backing up your data at all.
RAID – Not backup but will protect your server disks.
All servers should be given every opportunity to stay alive, running a RAID configuration will help prevent data loss due to hard drive failure. If you have 3 drives running in a RAID 5 configuration, your server will tolerate a single drive failure. RAID will not protect you from fire, flood, theft or any other disaster waiting to happen, but does offer business continuity.
This solution doesn't usually protect you from theft as the extra hard drives for RAID storage are usually installed in your computer or in other equipment on site. It usually won't protect you from fire either so this method does have its limitations.
Secure Offsite Data Backup and Recovery via a third party organization.
Offsite Backup or Backing up via the Internet methods are usually associated with larger enterprise companies. In the past the high cost of high speed connectivity has been prohibitive to smaller companies.
This method of data backup is now become totally accepted and is gaining momentum around the globe. The main reason for such grown is because the price of high speed internet connections has greatly reduced, virtually every business and home is connected to the internet via a minimum 2MB pipe as a result it is now possible to backup high volumes of data to a secure offsite data centre.
For me, the best element of an offsite backup solution is not the high encryption security levels in place, the price or the purpose designed replicated infrastructure where your data is stored, but it is the fact that an offsite backup solution is a totally automated process. Set and forget, once you have set the software to backup your data at a certain time of every day you can just forget it and let it get on with its job of protecting your data.
If I controlled your backup process, I would implement all three of the options mentioned. A RAID system for business continuity, offsite backup to securely protect all my business data, and to enable a quick restore, a CD backup of just my mission critical data which will keep my business running.
To find out more information about secure offsite data backup solutions, please visit
www.perfectbackup.co.uk
Article keywords: data backup, offsite backup, internet backup, remote backup, online backup, backup
Article Source: http://www.articles32.com
.: New Data Recovery Articles
1). A Brief History of Ontrack Data Recovery
When we talk of data recovery, terms like hard disk data recovery, hard drive recovery, and other terms related to computers are always in the surface. In terms of companies offering data recovery, several names can be mentioned, but definitely only few are known.
2). The Current and Future State of the Hard Drive and Data Recovery Industries
Where have we been and where are we going when it comes to Data Recovery? Find out the details in the following article.
3). What To Do For Data Tape Recovery
It always seems like computer problems wait until the worst moment to then spring up and say HaHa, Gotcha! Fret no more, this article looks into the various ways to combat data tape corruption and recover the all important data!
4). Prevent Data Loss! A Few Tips to Live by so You Never have to Visit a Data Recovery Specialist
Preventing a major data loss on your personal computer can be prevented by following these simple guidelines
5). Website Spiders, Discover Incredible Tips On Getting Your Site Indexed Super Fast
How do website spiders crawl and index a site? If you own a website, you should at least know how it is done. The only way visitors will be able to view your website is through the information gathered by the spiders and handed over to the search engines.
6). Data Recovery The Truth
Everything you ever wanted to know about data recovery.
7). Getting Acquainted With Offsite Data Backup
Off-site data backup should be an important part of your life if you have any data that you can not afford to lose. It may seem a bit confusing to you, but once you understand the basics you will agree that no one should be with out off-site data backup.
.: Top Data Recovery Articles
1). Hard Disk Failure and Data Recovery
Hard Disk: An Introduction
Hard disk is a non-volatile data storage device that stores electronic data on a magnetic surface layered onto hard disk platters. Word Hard is use to differentiate it from a soft, or floppy disk. Hard disks hold more data and can store from 10 to more than 100 gigabytes, whereas most floppies have a maximum storage capacity of 1.
2). XCACLS, SUNINACL, And Other Permissions Security Recovery Tools
You Have 50GB Of Data To Move Along With Permissions Security
----------------------------
This article is about several tools that can save a Windows administrators you know what in the event of a large scale permissions security problem.
Here is a fictional scenario we can use to illustrate the use of the XCACLS tool. We need to move or copy 50GB worth of data that is comprised of several thousand directories containing hundreds of thousands of small files from one storage system to another.
3). How To Recover Data Or Survive A Hard Disk Disaster
Disk failure occurs when a hard disk drive no longer operates and the information on it can no longer be accessed by the computer.
This can happen for no reason at all or due to an external factor such as exposure to fire or water or High Magneticwaves or suffering a sharp impact
How seriously the disk failure is varies.
4). Types of Computer Infection
Brief descriptions of the kinds of malicious software that abounds in todays computerised world are described and explained.
5). Data Recovery - What To Do When Your Hard Drive Fails
How many times have you experienced that sickening feeling when your hard drive suddenly fails? How many times have you experienced that your hard disk just does not boot and all the data may be gone forever? A hard drive failure is one of the most common problems and worst nightmares faced by computer operators all over the world. Precious data is lost either at home or in big corporate environments.
6). Can USB Data Recovery Be Recovered?
When you store important information on a USB device, you take the chance of losing that information. Losing data on a USB can be kind of a mystery, but there are companies out there that can help you get that data back. These companies use engineering that can recover your lost data over ninety six percent of the time. These companies can even recover data that has been stored on a damaged USB device.
7). COMPUTER PROBLEMS-Data Recovery and PC Protection
Data recovery and PC protection go hand in hand. Data recovery is a challenge faced by everyone using a computer. If you are reading this article I am sure you too like me have faced it sometime or the other. Now data loss can be due to a system crash that is the software crash or due to the hardware crash. Around 66% of the data loss is caused by software and user oriented problems.