If you are that kind of person who thinks “it won’t happen to me”, then you are about to commit a big mistake. Like many other aspects of life, the “it won’t happen to me” attitude might bring disaster to your data. Not only your business data, but also the data that resides on your home PC or laptop is valuable too. You might suffer a great emotional loss if your favorite pictures are lost, or the thesis that you are about to complete vanishes rapidly from your drive, leaving you dumbfound. There are several things that can take away your valuable data – power outage, hard drive crash, accidental deletion beyond the recycle bin, computer virus attack, faulty installation of software etc.
The frequency of the backup will vary from case to case. If you are the user of corporate data, then that data needs to be backed up more frequently. For a home user, the frequency will be less. Remember that backing up data involves cost. You have to chalk out an efficient backup strategy to make optimum utilization of your resources. The most widely circulated thumb rule is to backup those data that would be difficult to recreate.
For small scale backup activities, you might think of burning DVDs or CDs. These two tools are both economical and handy. Most computers are equipped with optical burners that burn data into these optical disks.
Depending on your need, you can implement a system that can backup data all the time. You have to spend some money and time to establish such a system. You need to look beyond the optical disk burners – look at some hardware installation. The most common solution is to fit in an external drive. This will eliminate the need for manual backups, labeling and filing.
For office data, you might need to backup data across an entire network. Naturally, this will shoot up your backup costs. You have to install a high capacity Network Attached Storage (NAS) box to enable everyone in the local network to back up their data.
Multi-disk NAS boxes are available in the market that provide Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) functionality. If one drive goes down, you will be able to reconstruct your files from those disks that remain.
To choose your data backup storage device, you need to follow these steps:
• Firstly, determine the quantity and approximate size of the data that you need to backup.
• Secondly, figure out those files for which you need a permanent backup to a backup device or removable media.
• Thirdly, you need to think about scalability, the backup space you might require in future.
• Fourthly, you need to plan for your backup budget – the amount you are ready to dish out for the secondary device or removable media. Your budget should be dependent on whether you plan to archive photographs, scanned files, music, or data files. You should also consider about the portability factor of your intended backup device.
• Sixthly, compare prices of backup devices that come close to your need. The best way to compare is cost per MB of stored data.
• Lastly, you need to make the actual decision. Here are some tips – you can buy a 100 MB zip drive if you need limited storage; a 250 MB zip drive if you have moderate storage needs; a CD RW drive if you need around 600-700 MB of storage; a Jaz or tape backup drive for backing up large amounts of data; or an external hard drive if you need lots of space and do not bother about portability.
After the hardware part, comes the software part. The best policy would have been to drag those important files into the storage area every time you change the file. But people are forgetful by nature. Sooner or later you will forget and then only the big bang data crash will occur. Most of the latest operating systems (Windows Vista/7and Mac OS X Leopard) include backup utilities.
Several third party backup tools are available that do a very good job. The cheapest among them starts with a mere $20. These tools are useful if you wish to backup selected files or folders, or even files of a particular extension. If you want foolproof protection, consider investing in a drive-imaging application. The drive-imaging applications take up a lot of space, but the entire system can be restored including the OS, applications, and even application settings. Some of the well known backup programs are described below:
• Ghost 9.0, a tool that creates full drive images
• IBackup, which copies files to remote databases
• Dantz’s Retrospect Professional 6.5, which is a traditional backup tool
• Backup4, which protects your data and has an easy-to-use data backup wizard
• Handy Backup, a software that takes automatic backup of all critical data to any storage medium
One last word – the best data backup strategy is to keep your backed up data off-site. This will prevent data loss due to natural and man-made calamities. You can also subscribe for an online backup service, at about $50 a year.