Don’t backup your data….
Everyone knows they should backup their data. Why is it then, at Computer Troubleshooters, we spend an inordinate amount of time recovering data for people? Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt…
Since everyone knows you should backup your data, I’m not going to bang the “backup” drum any more. I’ll instead talk about the right way to protect your data. Basically there are 2 ways to back up your data, a traditional backup (save a copy to a safe place) and an archive (a series of backup files).
Think of a backup as single photo and an archive as a movie. With a backup you can get to a very specific moment in time. That photo of you at the party with the lampshade on your head. Imagine this is the only photo of you available. Is it accurate? Does it represent YOU?
Well, it is accurate in that it is you at that moment in time, but it may not be the photo you want people to remember you by.
Imagine you had a movie of you at the same party…you’re happy, you’re smiling, you’re having a good time, then, your wearing the lampshade and the movie ends. You can rewind to the points you like and skip the points you don’t like. This is an archive of you at the party.
Ok…so we have two ways of representing you at the party. Now, what if we want to show someone YOU having fun at the party. If all you have is a single backup, your stuck with the lampshade photo. But, if you have the archive, you can find a variety of happy moments (with or without the lampshade).
Having a backup, a single copy of a file at a single point in time, is better than nothing. But, what if you want to see a previous version of that file, to go back in time to an earlier edit; you can’t. You only have that single backup file.
An archive is a series of backups, taken over time, that let you rewind and fast forward to any point in time. Lets try a real world example (sorry, no more parties).
Tuesday morning, someone accidently erases your cost tracking spreadsheet. The system is backed up Tuesday night, and you come in Wednesday, and voila, no spreadsheet. You have a backup, but its after the file was deleted, you have nothing to restore. You have a backup, but it doesn’t help.
If you had an archive, where you have a series of backups over time, you could rewind to the last known good backup that included the spreadsheet and restore it. This is why you need an archive, and not just a backup.
When you create your backup strategy, ensure you include archiving procedures to allow for increased data protection flexibility. Many backup tools and software allow for archiving. We use products from Storagecraft, Carbonite, and Mozy Pro which all provide archiving as part of their feature set.
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