Today’s digital transformation—from mobile devices to embedded systems, virtualization, social media applications and inter-connected devices led to major shift in our everyday relationship with data. The world’s most valuable commodity is no longer oil, but data! Data, however needs maintenance and strategy otherwise can get lost. In the modern world data loss happens frequently and being unprepared can lead to disastrous consequences such as: loss of resources, reputation damage, and frustration associated!
For all of our new clients and maybe some of you familiar with backups, we’d like to share some power tips that will help you never to loose your data again.
Public Cloud, NAS or a External Hard Drive
In recent years more and more people say that the best way to make sure your data is backed up is to send it to the cloud. This statement is only partially true since we do not yet know how these cloud services will operate in years to come, or how safe it is to assume storing data to the cloud will keep it protected, least to say. Cloud is in nutshell multi-drive RAID-like server able to receive-store-transmit user data over the internet. The big and only difference between any other data storage systems is that cloud is away from the user and more or less continuously available to users requiring minimal effort to use it. Not more that to use any other website.
Simplified version of the same thing is NAS or (Network attached storage) in case you want to avoid public cloud services altogether. NAS is easy-to-set-up solution that can automatically back up your computer on a regular basis and make the files available through your own “cloud”. Big advantage of the cloud like systems is that, if you were to lose your phone or laptop you won’t lose the important documents, photos, videos, music files and anything else you value.
The very best way to be sure never to lose data is to put set of rules to action that will prevent this from happening. One of those rules is that it takes less time to backup than to create data!
Some people may be apposed to cloud services despite the enormous benefits and concerned about privacy, security or cost. They can use an external hard drive, for example. Backing up can be done by having two or more drives and rotating them out to a safe location like, leaving a backup drive at a friend’s house or in a bank safe deposit box. By backing up data to a drive and then putting it somewhere safe, your data will be safer than just backing up to a local external hard drive.
Cloud Services Pricing vs Cost of Data Recovery
Most cloud storage and backup solutions charge for every GB of storage used in the cloud, as your backups grow and consume more cloud storage, so you pay more. Although physical seeding using a hard drive can greatly speed up the cloud initialization process, almost all cloud service providers charge a fee for this service. Another cost to take into consideration is a retrieval fee to users who need to access their data. Cloud service providers allow you to insert your data for free (unless physically seeded) while they charge various fees to move your data out of the cloud. Last but not the least important is that many clouds have soft service-level agreement (SLA), meaning it pays to read the fine print and determine how the cloud you are relying on for mission-critical backup and recovery will perform when it matters most.
Alternative to backup is often hiring a data recovery service provider. Cost of data recovery services is seldom cheap. Most providers have no data, no pay policies in place while many offer free evaluation meaning they will take a look into your case free of charge while if they can’t recover your data you will not be charged. Data recovery is a highly specialized skill and requires special equipment, tools and environment. It is often misrepresented and poorly understood. On physical level to recover data one usually have couple of good attempts before full recovery becomes impossible due to media damage. There are so many service shops that offer data recovery services these days that making a selection is a considerable task. Most advertise as leaders in the industry, or to have state-of-the-art equipment, certificates and thousands of happy clients while in fact most are just one step up from DIY approach. Data recovery is a last chance resource and if you are looking for these services other options are usually exhausted.
The best backup strategy is having at least 3 total copies of your data. Two of the copies are local, but on different devices and at least one copy offsite. The 3-2-1 backup strategy is the best practice, because it ensures that you’ll have a copy of your data no matter what happens. In 2019 one should not have problem finding suitable device, from portable hard drives and solid-state devices to servers, managed or not. However, any backup strategy starts with a plan. Think how much data you store, for how long, portable or not, storage hot or cold? Important part of any backup is restoring. Some studies say almost 50% of backups fail during the recovery stage. Most large companies test disaster recovery plans at least once a year, small business and home users almost never test their backups.
However you choose to backup your data, make sure that you do it. Often people don’t think about what were to happen if their valuable files were to be lost, until it’s too late. If you lose your critical data, make sure you choose a reputable recovery firm that can properly recover data from any failed data storage device.
