Essentials of an Effective Backup Strategy
What will you do if you lost thousands of Megabytes worth of
data because you never saw the importance of a backup system? If
your personal computer or laptop suddenly crashes, the
irretrievable data can sum up to a staggering amount and even
cause irreversible damage to a company. Most people and
businesses make the mistake of not having a backup for years
worth of data. The primary reasons of foregoing this important
procedure is their belief that such a disaster can never happen
to them and copying data to a storage device is tedious and even
a waste of time. How do you put a price tag on lost work
documents, personal documents, notes, databases, emails, email
contacts and plans? Not backing up important data is an
invitation for disaster. Whether you encounter power failure, a
corrupted file, a virus, or human error, most computer users can
still lose some amount of data if not all. Having realized the
importance of backing up, here are 5 essential guidelines for a
reliable backup strategy.
Effective backup strategy element #1
Invest in a Backup Software of good quality and performance.
Think about how much more you'll spend to recover lost data
versus the price of a reliable backup software. A product that
leaves you secured from future data data-loss disasters is
always a good investment. A good backup software is the heart of
an effective backup strategy. Do research over the Internet to
know the latest softwares, compare their features and prices.
You can also visit forums and see first-hand reviews of backup
softwares they have tried.
Effective backup strategy element #2
Double check the restore capability. Now what good is a backup
system if it can store but cannot be restore the data? One way
of ensuring the full restorability of your data is to invest in
a backup product that has bit-level verification. The feature
guarantees that while the product is performing your backup it
checks all the data down to the level of bits and bytes.
Fundamentally, the software first backs up the data and then
automatically performs a test restore to make sure that every
single bit has been copied.
Effective backup strategy element #3
Double check the capability of your backup medium. You can spend
so much on the best backup software and diligently backup your
data everyday but disaster can still hit if you don't have a
dependable medium to store your archives. Another way to ensure
your data restorability is choose mediums of high quality and
performance. Performing test restores using the medium from time
to time is also a good idea.
Effective backup strategy element #4
Inspect your hard drives from time to time. Regularly checking
your hard drives to prevent disaster is not a waste of time.
Beware of spyware and viruses that can affect your system.
Correct errors and bad sectors as soon as they are detected to
prevent the failure of your drives.
Effective backup strategy element #5
Set a regular backup. You add data every time you use your
personal computer or laptop. This means that you will have to
backup all this additional data every once in a while too. Most
software packages can do the updating for you with a built in
scheduler. You can set the backup timetable from every hour to
as long an interval you think is needed.