Backup

It is an unfortunate truth that computer hardware fails. One of the most common components to fail is the hard disk, while modern disks are far more reliable than their early counterparts, they are still a mechanical device that spin many thousands of times per minute and as such there is a chance that it could fail at any time.

The hard disk isn't the only component that can fail but its failure is the one with the most far reaching consequences. We entrust increasing amounts of data to our hard disks, songs, photos, letters, email, contact details and accounts data to name but a few. We can ill afford to lose some of this data, I know I'd hate to lose all the family photos I've collected over the years, but what would hurt much more would be all the business data which I could potentially lose.

For many of us the data that we have on our computers is the very lifeblood of our businesses, be it the accounts or customer contact details its important to the successful running of our business. So its very important to backup this data onto another device and/or media, hopefully it will also be stored offsite or maybe in a fireproof safe.

We all know that we should perform regular backups, but there's a surprisingly large number of businesses who don't. Backing up your data should be an integral part of your disaster recovery planning, and you should also test that your backups are working and that you can retrieve your data from your backup files.

At Convallis we operate a multi-tier approach which will protect us should the worst happen. Its good practice to backup every day and for that day to day backup we have a network attached storage (NAS) device that we backup all our changed files to every day.

But that device needs power and also relies on a hard disk so there's a problem if both the disk in the computer and the NAS fail. For that reason we also use a product called Acronis True Image Workstation which we use to create a backup file of all our data which we then copy onto a DVD and a flash drive. The DVD is then stored in a fireproof safe at the other end of the building, so that if there's a fire at one end we'll have time to rescue data from the other and in the worst case it will be safe in the 'safe'. Obviously I hope to never test the fire bit, but it is something we need to plan for.

One key advantage with Acronis True Image is that not only does it allow for the backup of individual files/folders but it can also create an image of the whole hard disk. This potentially needs a large amount of storage, but the advantage is that in the event that the hard disk of your computer does fail once a new disk has been acquired and fitted it is possible to restore the image on to the new disk. That means that the operating system, applications and data that you had on your old disk are recreated on the new one saving a lot of time if you've got several applications to install.