Data Backup - Why and How???
October 8, 2007 – 3:48 amBackup of data can mean different things for different users! Is it a hard disk you want to backup, a server on a LAN or a partition of your hard disk? It can also be a database, specific files or Directories/Folders. On which medium are you planning to store the backup? The ways data has been stored has changed over time. From punch strips, removable disk to data tapes. Data in the old days was stored on larges tapes. When the program needed to process data, the information was loaded from tapes in real times. Things have changed with the adoption of the Internet, LAN, WAN and ever more powerful storage medium. Today it is becoming more and more popular to make a snapshot of disk drives and write that information on to a DVD with the computer’s DVD player.
Data backup is said to be the best prevention for data loss. Now the question arise what exactly Backup is? It is a process of having duplicate copy of the original one. It is an activity of copying files or databases so that the data will be preserved in case of any accidentally or intentionally deletion of the data.Since data is very important for higher efficiency, backup is one of the most powerful ways to protect against data loss.
Need for Backup:
There are various reasons for data loss like viruses, application problems, human errors, operating system failure, and many more. Backup plays a vital role for the businesses or the organizations, who spends lot of time on the computer for their personal or business dealings.
According to opinions taking no appropriate steps to preserve the data is the greatest mistake. Some people still follow the old paradigm of “it will never happen to me”. Now this should be changed as data loss can be faced at anytime and by anyone.
No matter what happens to your computer, you should backup because some data can be replaced but the most important files which cannot be retrieved may cause you a severe problem, as a result backing up the files, documents etc is very necessary.
Storage Media:
When you start thinking of backing up the data, first thing comes to your mind what data to backup. Well it depends on how frequent you use your computer, how much your data is important.
So before Backing up your data, the capacity of your data place an important role, identifying the capacity of the backup medium to the quantity of data you propose to backup is very important. It’s a good idea to have something big enough to put a single copy of all your information on one physical thing.
In the earlier days, if a person holds the huge data it would be difficult for him to backup the whole data, as the only media available was the floppy disks which consisted just over a megabyte of data. But now the technology has fully changed, a person can save his data according to the capacity of his data, he can choose the appropriate Medias like:
- Tape
- Hard disk
- Optical Disk like CD, DMD etc.
- Floppy Disk
- External Hard Drive
- Remote backup service etc.
Backing up is an important task for any individual or organization, however as data becomes increasing important in business, the loss of data is often sharply felt in terms of cost and effort. Whatever method we choose, but backing up your files are very important because it is the one of the safest method to protect against the worst.
