The Necessity Of A Good Data Back Up Habit

Devastating data loss can happen at the least expected hour. Virus attacks, partition corruptions, hard disk failure, sudden power surges etc. can wreck your most well laid plans. The physical malfunctioning of the hard disk, a media where data is stored, is one of the commonest reasons for data loss. As all the data in the system is naturally stored in the hard disk, there is a greater chance of the disk getting corrupted. Data recovery from a failed hard disk is no mean task; it is a difficult and expensive proposition. Data loss can be effectively countered by resorting to good precautionary measures like a thorough data back up habit. Retrieving a file from a back up is not as expensive as retrieving data from a failed system.

Data backup is a process of storing or saving a copy of your files in another location within or outside your system. This allows easy file recovery as the file is present in another medium. Back up is a simple process that does not consume time or money. In fact it can save you a lot of trouble if you make back up a regular habit. There are many ways by which you can back up your data but you should be cautious and have knowledge about your operating system and software in use. Some of the media onto which data can be backed up include removable media, USB memory sticks, floppy disks and external storage devices.

The most frequently used media for back up is the compact disks, zip drives or compact disk rewritable drives. Now-a-days most systems come with DVD/CD burner and software. The advantage being that a large amount of data storage is possible on it. CDs are permanent copies of your data as it cannot be erased or rewritten. The CDRW allows data to be recorded, erased and rewritten. These are removable media formats like a floppy disk but can hold data at least 70 times more. It is inserted into the zip drive of your system and data is copied onto it just like the floppy disks.

USB sticks/flash drive act similar to a portable HDD. They are memory drives that are compact which helps you to store or/and transport data. They are so miniature and compact that they can be easily slipped into the pocket, around the neck or even latched to your key chains. They surprisingly can hold a large amount of data and even come with special software that allows the data stored in it to be protected with passwords.

There are other devices for temporary back up of data like the floppy disks, one of the oldest modes of data storage. These have become outdated as capacity and reliability are low. The data can also become unstable very fast and the new-gen computers come with no floppy disk drives.

A regular and concrete back up strategy will help in case of disaster recovery. You can decide on the modes on which back up is to be stored be it a network server, a USB memory stick, ZIP disk or CDRW. You can also choose the priority of your data to be stored selecting from employee or financial records, important databases such as customer list. You can set your backup software to perform scheduled back ups at regular intervals. Important data should be scheduled for back ups daily.

Every large firm or business should have an effective back up policy and decide whether to have a system back up or incremental system back up. It is ideal that back up data is stored in a different offsite location other than the main system.

Regular back up habit will save you time, money and unnecessary hassles associated with unexpected missing or lost data.

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