One of the most integral factors of an operational business plan is to have a dependable data backup software solution, particularly if the business is based on operational or customer data. If this is the situation, then it is vital that you have proper protection, and the only way to achieve this is with a dependable backup solution. Here we focus on some of the most popular data backup solutions that are available.
Basic Solutions for Data Backup
One of the most basic ways for dependable data backup is to save you information onto a CD. In this way you have another copy of your data available should anything ever go wrong with your computer. And although this is a reliable data backup solution it is also only very rudimentary protection, and there are some problems involved with this approach.
Regularly burning data to CD’s needs efforts and intervention on your part. Taking valuable time out of your busy schedule, and after all we are only human, so people sometimes get really busy and forget to back up the data. Things happen and before you know it you haven’t mad any backups for a month and BAM! Your computer goes ape and you lose all your data.
Using CD as a data backup solution poses another threat; there are some serious limitations to CD media. The first being they cannot survive fires, so if you have a fire in your home or office where the CD’s are stored, your dependable data backup solution goes out the window.
You lose it! The second dilemma is that CD media is prone to degrade over time, and it has been recently found that CD’s, ambitiously advertised to be able to last for a hundred years were losing data in as little as a few years.
Burning data to CD’s has its place and it offers a reasonably dependable solution, it is better than not doing anything but is certainly not ideal.
Dependable Data Backup Solutions Online
As is the case with many products, online data backup solutions are now available, offering dependable data backup solutions at affordable costs. You are now able to backup and archive your valuable data online. This option has many benefits and data storage off-site has the potential to protect this resource from both fire and theft.
The only way in which any theft of your data could take place is through your own carelessness. This means you must password protect your computer and don’t automatically save any password in your data storage applications. In the instance that you don’t follow this advice, if anyone physically accesses your computer, they may gain access to your data. However, this being said, saving your data to a web server is a dependable data backup solution.
The one limitation to using a web server to backup your data is the cost involved. Generally speaking, it is cost effective to store up to 2GB of data, but not advisable for a full hard drive back-up.
Hardware Data Backup Solution On-site
Another way in which to create a dependable data backup solution is to have RAID compatible motherboard installed in your computers as well as several hard drives in all computers.
This is a particularly good option for protection from hard drive crashes, and any computer technician is able to set this up for you. If this process is carried out correctly it can protect your data from any hardware failures that might mean loss of data.
Unfortunately, this solution will not protect data from theft due to the fact that hard drives for RAID storage are generally installed in the computer or another on-site situation. Limitations also include the fact that these hard drives cannot withstand fire.
So Why Not Combine Data Backup Solutions?
The ultimate solution is to make use of all possible data backup solutions, this is a sure fire way of providing a dependable data backup solution, and provides the maximum of protection. This would mean, regularly burning data to CD’s. Obtain a web hosting account with plenty of storage space and regularly upload vital files to the web server, but remember to encrypt it from your side.
The final step in a dependable data backup solution is have a technician fit the RAID system into your computer and this, together with burning CD’s and using and off-site web server will be sure to protect your valuable information. If the cost of all these measure is a problem, install the additional RAID hard drive on only one computer and have at least one more hard drive available for data storage.
By use of these three solutions you will be ensured of a dependable data back up solution, minimizing any risk to your information and livelihood. $ James Redder
