Backup Solutions
Backup Solutions
Your backup procedures are the most important aspect of your computer system. They allow you to recover from potentially costly data loss by allowing you to rollback time to a point where your system was working and start from there. Without effective backup procedures a power loss, virus or hard drive crash could cost you your business.
There are 4 basic reasons for a backup. Some are not required by some people. Only you can determine your needs. The list below will help you determine whether your current system fills all your requirements.
Onsite catastrophic system failure
This is the typical hard drive crash. All data on the system is lost. The system cannot boot, all software and data is irretrievable.
Some more sophisticated tape backup software has disaster recovery disks that allow you to boot from a floppy and recover the last full system backup. Most often you will need to reinstall the operating system (windows) and then the tape backup software then restore your system backup. The key to recovering from this kind of failure is to do complete system backup often. Many times people do partial backups and only do complete backups once a week or even once a month. Coming from someone who has actually had to restore an incremental backup, experience shows that the extra time needed to restore multiple backups costs more in down time and labor costs than the savings in not doing a full system backup.
Force Majeure / Theft
This describes act of God ie.data loss is physically lost, taken, burned etc.
Quite often backup systems are kept on site and managed by the office manager or IT manager. When the building burns down, the backup is lost with the data. The most logical way to prevent this is to store a full system backup off site. Many clients of PCC have some procedure for storing a backup offsite, ranging from the office manager keeping one in her purse to daily deposits in a safe deposit box. Some backup systems are not designed to be moveable and don't use tapes. These systems need to be augmented to protect you from this type of loss.
Data corruption / Data over written
"OOps, where is that file" syndrome.
When data is lost due to human error the backup system needs to be able to restore a single file at a time. Most tape backup systems take a long time to sort through the backup to find the file you need. Even with a catalog function, tape backups are sequentially written meaning that the backup drive may take as much as an hour just to restore a 1 meg file. To add to this, if the file is not found to be missing for more than a week many backup systems have already been over written. The only way to recover from this type of data loss is with an adequate backup archive. Some people will take 1 tape out of their tape rotation every month, others do separate backups and store them. The idea is to be able to go back to a point in time and restore just that one file or directory you need. Many clients don't even think about this but when it happens they find their procedures were inadequate. If you use only two tapes you only have 1 night of archive, 5 tapes , one week etc
Managing deleted files
Aside from the obvious deletion of data files employees delete things like their resumes and inappropriate content that they don't want you to see. Backup systems are quite often labored by deleted files filling recycle bins. On a network when a employee deletes a file it does not go in the recycle bin. There is software you can use to allow all deleted files to be managed from the server thus reducing data loss.
With all this information you should be able to better evaluate your current backup procedures and see if they measure up. We have recently been able to develop some backup procedures for smaller clients that give all the features of more costly backup solutions. Below are some new products that will allow you to save thousands of dollars while upgrading your backup systems to allow you the protection you need.
Maxtor Personal storage 5000 LE
PCC Cost $161 comparable
tape backup >$2000
Plextor Plexwriter 48X/24X/48X CDRW
PCC Cost $114 For use as backup archive
Features:
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E-IDE (ATAPI) interface |
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3-in-1 drive: 48X CD-R, 24X CD-RW, 48X max CD-ROM |
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PoweRec |
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SpeedRead |
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65ms Average Random Access |
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4 MB Buffer |
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Supports CD-DA, CD-Extra, CD-ROM Mode 1, Mix Mode CD, CD-ROM XA, Photo CD, Video CD, CD-I, Multisession, CD-Text, CD+G, UDF |
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Supports Disc-at-Once, Track-at-Once, Session-at-Once, Variable & Fixed packet writing modes |
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Flash ROM allows for easy upgrade over the Internet |
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Windows 98/2000/ME/XP Compatible |
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One-Year Full Warranty and Unlimited Toll-Free Tech Support |
Executive Software Undelete 3.0
Pricing based on number of
workstations please call!
Features:
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Up-to-the-minute data protection®. While Undelete is installed on your system, you can be assured your data will be protected 24/7. |
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Emergency Undelete®. If a file was accidentally deleted before Undelete was installed, Emergency Undelete can be run from the CD to recover files directly from the disk—without the risk of overwriting them. |
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Undelete From Disk scans, finds and recovers any file deleted from the Recovery Bin, as long as it hasn’t been overwritten. |
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NEW! SecureDelete™. Deletes files permanently, so sensitive or confidential data doesn't get into the wrong hands. |
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NEW! Windows XP support now available. |
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NEW! Expanded search features allow you to search by date file was deleted or created, file owner, account file was deleted from or files deleted in a specified number of days. |
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NEW! Time-based Recovery Bin purge. |
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NEW! Recover compressed files directly from disk. |
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Unconditional 30-day, money-back guarantee. |
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Free tech support for 90 days. |