The Importance of Backups

Last Updated on Thursday, 17 June 2010 10:08 Written by admin Tuesday, 1 June 2010 10:16

The Importance of Backups

This may be teaching you to suck eggs but human nature being what it is, backing up your data is often put off, just like checking your pensions or reviewing your insurance – and it can be just as important.

I believe in two main principles with regard to backing up your computer:

1.     Backups must be automated

2.     Recovering backed-up data must be simple

These two principles lend themselves nicely to residential users; the more complicated your backup becomes, the more fragile it becomes.

The commercial market, on the other hand, generally requires complex “Grand-father, Father, Son” type backups, both long-term and short-term, with off-site storage and a host of other complications. Thus corporate backups often require a dedicated job function to manage them and discussion of this is perhaps for another time.

Here, I want to talk about designing a simple automated backup that will reliably make a copy of your critical data to another storage medium, be it a hard disk or memory stick.

Firstly you need to step back from the detail and ask yourself how upset you would be if your laptop or Desktop was stolen. Obviously the loss of the machine itself would be upsetting, but that aside, if the loss of the data on the machine sets you nerves jangling then read on.