Backup Basics

Synopsis

If you have data that you do not want to lose, then you should have a backup. Unfortunately, few realize critical data until it is gone. I would suggest everyone have some form of backup for their data. To know if you have a good backup in place, you should follow the 3-2-1 rule. The rule goes as follows:

Three copies of your data

· Working Copy

· Local Backup Copy

· Offsite Backup Copy

Two different types of media, such as local drive or network drive

One of the copies is offsite, i.e., in the cloud.

Not all backups are created equal, and you should understand the difference between a file backup and a system backup and what you need for your backup. Does the backup do versioning? Are the backups a full backup or incremental?

If you are just worried about files, a file backup with versioning capabilities will do the job. It will allow you to recover a file individually at any version of the file the backup has saved. For example, if you have a file backup that takes one backup a day and you start a word document and add one word a day, then you would be able to restore that file from 5 days ago, and the file would be in the state it was five days ago with five fewer words then it was before you restored the file.

Something else you should consider is the retention time for the backup. Some backups will only keep the last six months, and as you get to a new month, the backup deletes the oldest backup. Other backups will retain the data for much longer.

Keep reading if you want more information on backups.

What is a Backup?

A backup is another copy of your data. When it comes to data, it is essential to have multiple copies of vital data just in case something happens. In most cases, it is not a malicious attack the causes data to go missing. It could be negligence that caused the data to go away. Either way, having a backup of your data is key to ensuring it is safe. If you have a backup, you can restore the data, and it saves time in the sense that you do not need to recreate the data.

I once had an incident at work where a client accidentally deleted an email backup. This email backup had over ten years of email in it that she referenced regularly. We were only backing up the server, and this email file was stored on her computer. She could not get the file back, and as a result, ten years of the email was lost.

You never know where critical data is stored, and therefore it is my opinion to have some backup for every file that you can reasonably backup. This point of view might be a bit extreme, but you don't want to be in that boat of needing data that you knew you had but is now gone, and you can't get it back.

What Backup Should I Look For?

The most common form of backup is a file backup. File backups are backups that make a copy of your files and saving them in another location. File backups are good if you foresee yourself needing to restore individual files or folders. Another typical backup is a complete system backup. System backups are backups that can restore the entire computer. Let's assume you turn on your computer one day and the hard drive had failed, and it will not boot. With a full system backup, you can install another hard drive, and most of these types of backups have a bootable USB or something similar, and you can completely restore the computer on the new hard drive, and it will essentially be your old computer.

Something else to consider is backup retention. Due to space constraints, it is not easy to store backups indefinitely. Most backup solutions will allow you to hold your backup as long as you have space for it, or if the backup provider is storing your data, they will keep the most recent data, and the older data drops off the backend and is deleted. So if you wanted to restore a file from this week, you could pick any day this week to regain the form, but if you wanted the version of the file from earlier than that, you might only be able to get the version of the file that was available at the beginning of the week for 2-4 weeks prior. If you wanted an even earlier version of the file, you might only be able to pick the version as it existed at the start of the month for months 2-6. Then backups earlier than that are deleted and not accessible.

Conclusion

If you have data that is important to you, then you should have a backup. It would be best if you aimed to meet the basic 3-2-1 backup rule. Ensure that your backup be it a file or full system backup and backup retention fits your needs.