13 December 2010
In 1996, a major bank in Paris, the Credit Lyonnais, was struck by a fire. System administrators risked being roasted alive as they raced into the burning building to rescue backup tapes because they do not have off-site copies. Numerous sensitive computer archives and data were lost.
As if any reminder were needed, there is always a vital need for business and individuals to carry out a regular backup of their data. Here is a look at some of the many data backup practices trusted by many worldwide. A data backup plan should consider accessibility, security and cost. Here is a review of the different backup storage media.
It is vital for business and individuals to carry out regular backups of their data
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape has long been used as the data storage medium for massive data, backup, archiving and interchange. Since tape is a sequential access medium, access time is quite poor, but the rate of continuously writing on them can be very rapid. Some new tape drives are even faster than modern hard disk drives. Perhaps the foremost advantage of magnetic tape is that among the data storage media available, it is the oldest used and hence the most well-understood.
Hard Disk
It used to be that hard disks were far expensive than magnetic tape thus reducing their popularity as back up mediums. However, the capacity per price ratio of hard disks has considerably improved over the years so that hard disks are now commonly used for storage of bulk data.
The main advantages of hard disks are low access times, availability, capacity and ease of use. The downside is that hard disks can be easily damaged during transport to off-site backup centers and stability of data during storage is not known.
Floppy Disk
In the 80’s and 90’s floppy disks were the most common data backup storage media used but are now rendered obsolete due to their low capacity.
Optical Storage
Optical storage media include recordable and rewritable CD and DVD, RAM and WORM formats and Blu-ray discs. The advantages are their low cost and compact size. Some optical storage systems allow cataloguing of data without human contact on the disc media, thus preserving data integrity.
Solid State Storage Media
USB flash drives and flash memory cards fall under this category. They generally have lower capacity per price ratio (although that is improving now) but they are commonly used because of their durability, ease of use and portability.
Remote Backup Service
This refers to remote data storage hosted by private third-party service provider via the internet. As broadband internet connections are reaching out across the globe, this data backup is becoming popular. An advantage of remote backup is they cannot be reached by catastrophic situations such as fires, floods and earthquakes.
Remote backups are not without their potential serious drawbacks, however. Broadband connections are much slower than that of local data storage devices, there is also the risk of entrusting personal and sensitive data in the hands of a third party provider, and when you think of it, these remote backup providers also have to use any of the above backup media themselves, which are not fail-proof.
Conclusion
As there is not a single perfect backup method, at Kingdom Data Recovery we strongly recommend that it’s best to use combine 2 or more of the above techniques to ensure that your essential data is safe and easy to access in an emergency. If, however, the worst should happen and you discover that your back ups have failed just when you need them most - speak to the data recovery experts at Kingdom Data Recovery.
