Do You Care About Data Backup?

Do You Care About Data Backup?

It often happens that a hard drive stops working and needs to be replaced, the operating system crashes and requires reinstallation, or it's not impossible for your laptop with important data and programs to be stolen.

In today's world, it's not a matter of if these events will occur but when they will. That's why data backup is crucial to ensure that valuable data doesn't become a constant concern, but rather, in case of unforeseen circumstances, you can recover your data as quickly as possible.

Defining a Backup Policy

While large companies can easily allocate substantial resources in case of data loss, medium and small businesses often don't have such financial luxuries. Therefore, they need to be cautious in choosing software and hardware for data backup.

A backup policy is a set of rules within a company or organization that defines activities related to data storage.

Before creating a backup policy, consider some crucial factors that can significantly impact your decision:

Backup frequency - daily, weekly, monthly?

Recovery point - depends on data change speed and importance. Can you afford to lose data for the past 7 days?

Backup type - various types of backups can be configured (incremental - storing data that has changed or been created since the last backup, full backup, etc.).

Backup devices - tapes, NAS devices, or backup appliances?

Offsite backup - this is the most secure type of backup. How often do you want this, and where will you perform the backup?

Online backup - do you need data backup in the cloud?

Security - do you want to encrypt data during storage?

What data do you want to store - documents, emails, databases?

Backup policies mostly depend on the resources you can or want to invest in, local legal regulations, and your specific requirements.

Choosing Data Storage Devices

The choice of a backup device is one of the most critical factors when creating a backup policy. Depending on which device you choose, the scope of work during data backup will vary. Here is a list of some of the most relevant providers of all-in-one backup devices that offer maximum reliability:

STORServer (www.storserver.com)

Arkeia (www.arkeia.com)

Dell SonicWall & PowerVault (www.sonicwall.com)

Quantum (www.quantum.com)

UniTrends (www.unitrends.com)

Backup tapes are also data storage devices, although they are not as popular as they once were. Regardless of their declining popularity, backup tapes can still be an excellent choice for companies that perform full backups quite often.

Portable hard drives represent the simplest form of backup devices and are most commonly used in small offices and businesses with a limited number of computers.

NAS (Network-Attached Storage) devices might be the best solution for medium and small businesses. NAS devices come in various variants, starting from a wireless hard drive with a capacity of 1 TB up to multi-terabyte RAID devices designed for business implementation. Although most of these devices come with backup software, you can also use other software options.

Data Storage Applications

Several backup applications can be used in combination with portable hard drives, NAS devices, or even cloud services:

Cobian - the most popular backup application that supports network access and incremental and differential backups.

Acronis - offers numerous backup tools for small and medium-sized users.

ReBit - provides both software and hardware backup solutions.

Genie Timeline

Cloud Data Storage Services

Storing data on a remote or another location is a common practice in performing backups. In principle, the entire process is the same, except that data is saved in the cloud, eliminating the need for backup devices. The most common limitation in this type of backup is internet access speed. The most well-known cloud backup services are:

LiveDrive (www.livedrive.com)

SugarSync (www.sugarsync.com)

Crashplan (www.crashplan.com)

Carbonite (www.carbonite.com)

Backblaze (www.backblaze.com)

Secure Email Backup

Email messages have become the daily mode of communication for business operations, and many companies cannot afford to lose such critical information. Therefore, it is recommended to create email message backups using the following tools:

Google Vault for Gmail users

Gmvault (www.gmvault.org) - allows you to download all messages to your local computer.

Backupify (www.backupify.com) - besides Gmail, it enables backup for Facebook and Twitter accounts.