tankman1989
Active Member
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Greetings,
I have always given a lot of thought to various methods of data archival and backup. It seems that companies too often skimp on this issue in lieu of a "faster" system of some kind.
I thought I would write to differentiate the different kinds of data archival and backup. I'm guessing most know the various ways, and I probably am missing some and would be grateful for anyone filling in methods I miss.
-Full data backup - Backup entire hard drive, or auxiliary, to a drive of same or greater size. This is great for restoring a system after drive failure. This would be ideal as an addition to any RAID array or for any business system where going through the process of installing a new OS, software, configuration and data restoring would take too long. Basically consider this an external (or even internal) mirror.
-Valuable data backup - Baking up of specific data files such as documents, multi-media, projects, pictures, etc. It is best to have these on media which can be stored in a fire safe or better, off-site in either physical form (DVD's/CD's) or on a HD in a safe location.
-Daily backup of changed files - If there is a database, excel file or other files which are used on a regular basis it is of great benefit to have more than the current file backed up for a multitude of reasons. I would suggest making a permenant backup of the file once a month and storing it off-site. Also, you should make daily backups of this file and keep it on various on-site secured backups. should the file become corrupted, you will be able to find the date at which the corruption took place and maybe figure out why. This is great for internal auditing. You may find it beneficial to create hourly backups of the file(s) during hours of operation if there is constant updating to the file. (say a customer database or ordering/dispatch/shipping database). the volume of the business will dictate most of this to you. you may find it beneficial to keep each individual update for a week and then rotate your new backups in place of the old ones. Note, these will all be sequential updates, meaning you will NOT over-write the old files until the end of the month (or week for hourly backups) when you will make your new monthly backup. So you can picture it like this. You may have three HD's. One will store your monthly backups, going back maybe 4-5 years, HD 2 will have daily backups for the beginning and or end of each day (a months worth), if you have data input after hours, you might want to backup prior to starting the business day and at it's end. HD 3 will have a weeks worth of backups, hourly for each hour of operation. I would also create a DVD/CD of each monthly (end weekly if needed) backup ad store off-site.
If you are working with MS SQL server and you need to do a backup, there is an option called differential. This is the ideal way to do an hourly backup as it will only backup the "differences" in the database and will save A LOT of bandwidth! (I worked for a company which was doing an hourly backup of a 20+ GB DB and was wondering why the network was bogging down every hour
. The switched to a differential and it went from 20GB every hour, which not only taxes the network but the backup media, to <100Mb!). These little things can make such a HUGE difference!
I'm pretty sure I am missing some options. Can anyone think of other methods?
I have always given a lot of thought to various methods of data archival and backup. It seems that companies too often skimp on this issue in lieu of a "faster" system of some kind.
I thought I would write to differentiate the different kinds of data archival and backup. I'm guessing most know the various ways, and I probably am missing some and would be grateful for anyone filling in methods I miss.
-Full data backup - Backup entire hard drive, or auxiliary, to a drive of same or greater size. This is great for restoring a system after drive failure. This would be ideal as an addition to any RAID array or for any business system where going through the process of installing a new OS, software, configuration and data restoring would take too long. Basically consider this an external (or even internal) mirror.
-Valuable data backup - Baking up of specific data files such as documents, multi-media, projects, pictures, etc. It is best to have these on media which can be stored in a fire safe or better, off-site in either physical form (DVD's/CD's) or on a HD in a safe location.
-Daily backup of changed files - If there is a database, excel file or other files which are used on a regular basis it is of great benefit to have more than the current file backed up for a multitude of reasons. I would suggest making a permenant backup of the file once a month and storing it off-site. Also, you should make daily backups of this file and keep it on various on-site secured backups. should the file become corrupted, you will be able to find the date at which the corruption took place and maybe figure out why. This is great for internal auditing. You may find it beneficial to create hourly backups of the file(s) during hours of operation if there is constant updating to the file. (say a customer database or ordering/dispatch/shipping database). the volume of the business will dictate most of this to you. you may find it beneficial to keep each individual update for a week and then rotate your new backups in place of the old ones. Note, these will all be sequential updates, meaning you will NOT over-write the old files until the end of the month (or week for hourly backups) when you will make your new monthly backup. So you can picture it like this. You may have three HD's. One will store your monthly backups, going back maybe 4-5 years, HD 2 will have daily backups for the beginning and or end of each day (a months worth), if you have data input after hours, you might want to backup prior to starting the business day and at it's end. HD 3 will have a weeks worth of backups, hourly for each hour of operation. I would also create a DVD/CD of each monthly (end weekly if needed) backup ad store off-site.
If you are working with MS SQL server and you need to do a backup, there is an option called differential. This is the ideal way to do an hourly backup as it will only backup the "differences" in the database and will save A LOT of bandwidth! (I worked for a company which was doing an hourly backup of a 20+ GB DB and was wondering why the network was bogging down every hour
. The switched to a differential and it went from 20GB every hour, which not only taxes the network but the backup media, to <100Mb!). These little things can make such a HUGE difference!I'm pretty sure I am missing some options. Can anyone think of other methods?
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