DATA BACKUP

Data backup

• Backup is the activity of copying data or files so that they will be preserved in case of equipment failure or other catastrophe.

Purpose of data backup

• Data loss can be caused by many things ranging from computer viruses to hardware failures to file corruption to fire, flood, or theft (etc).

• A loss may involve critical financial, customer, and company data. If the data is on a personal computer, you could lose financial data and other key files, pictures, music, etc that would be hard to replace.

• The main purpose of data backup is to avoid data loss.

Types of Backup Media

• Offline– External Media– Internal Media

• Online– Departmental Servers– Data Backup Sites

External Backup Media

• Hardware– External USB/Firewire Hard Drive

– Mobile USB Hard Drive

More Hardware

• Hardware (cont.)– USB Flash Drive

– CD/DVD

Backup Software

• Software– Microsoft SyncToy

• http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

– Microsoft Windows Backup• http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx

– Third Party Software• Roxio Backup My PC• Nero BackItUp

– Ghost• http://www.symantec.com/norton/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost12

Online Backup

• Departmental Servers– U:/ Drive– Shadow Copy– Limited Space– Should not be only instance of data

• Career Accounts– X:/ Drive (H:/ Drive)– Limited Space

Commercial Online Backup

• Online Backup Sites– Pay for storage space online– Lots of providers for Business and Personal Use– Examples:

• http://www.ibackup.com/• http://www.datadepositbox.com/• http://www.idrive.com/• http://www.backupright.com/

– Photo Sites• http://www.snapfish.com/ • http://photobucket.com/• http://www.shutterfly.com/