 |
 Tech Tips - The Good & Bad of Data Backups
Performing data backups has become a daunting task for organizations large and small. As data sizes grow and network bandwidth becomes a premium, business owners need to be sure that critical data is being backed up and can be quickly recovered, not only in the event of a catastrophic system failure, fire, theft or other disaster, but also in the event of human error. When deciding which backup method is best for your organization, you should consider the speed of recovery, amount of data and of course cost of the back up system.
Magnetic Tape The Good (Pros): They are relatively inexpensive and are great for offline storage of data, file retrieval is fairly efficient as tapes store data chronologically, speed of recovery varies however based on the product you are using (software) to perform the recovery and the amount of data on the tape. Tapes offer a way to restore even from a catastrophic failure.
Magnetic Tape The Bad (Cons): They are very subject to environmental conditions, such as heat, humidity. Care has to be taken to remove bad tapes from the library. Also monthly restore tests are a best practice to ensure the data is usable. Also with the growth of data stores, tape backup can run into speed issues, and backups can take an extremely long time to accomplish.
CDs DVDs and External Drives The Good (Pros): File recovery is often very fast, especially if you have an organized way to catalog where specific data files are stored. It can be done workstation by workstation and be assigned to individual users as a task to make sure data is backed up, thus not requiring a software agent and using up server drive space and network bandwidth.
CDs DVDs and External Drives The Bad (Cons): CDs and DVDs can hold limited amounts of data, and taking multiple discs offsite can be very cumbersome. External hard drives have the same failure rate as internal hard drives and cannot always be trusted. Relying on users to backup there own data can be like rolling the dice as to whether the data is actually being backed up.
NAS (Network Attached Storage) The Good (Pros): Does not require human interaction on a daily basis in other words no one has to remember to change a tape. Large quantities (terabytes) of data can be backed up and it generally is faster than other methods depending on environmental and hardware variables.
NAS (Network Attached Storage) The Bad (Cons): This is a bad idea if you do not have a second location (physically) at which the device can be housed. It is never a good idea to have all your data in one single location. This can be expensive in the sense that the network infrastructure and hardware has to be of highest quality to make this method efficient.
Online Backups The Good (Pros): Online backups are gaining in popularity; this is where a service backs up your data across an internet connection. It is automatic and leaves less opportunity for human error.
Online Backups The Bad (Cons): This requires a monthly expense (contract). Also it is only as efficient as your internet connection, T1 is usually suggested. Also the service chosen is critical, questions should be asked such as, How is the data encrypted? and Who has access to my data? Speed of recovery is also an issue to be discussed with the provider.
Other considerations of any backup method:
How secure is the stored data?
Some companies have decided to use safe deposit boxes for keeping full copies of their data, other larger firms replicate data from location to location.
What is in place for redundancy?
Redundancy is also critical some companies use more than one backup method, for example if they use a NAS they will also do a monthly (or weekly) full tape backup.
Whats in place to be sure data can be restored if needed?
A testing plan should also be in place, you should know and not assume that your data can be restored if needed.
So far we have talked about the good and the bad but what about the ugly. The ugly would be forsaking any data backup plan and throwing caution to the wind. There are countless examples of organizations that either had no plan in place or had a faulty plan and the adverse effects they suffered. Remember that it is not a matter of if a hard drive will fail but when.
Walker Systems Support strongly recommends that you review your backup and offsite storage plans and audit them on an ongoing basis. Your data is critical to your operations, make sure you do everything feasible to protect it and your ability to function if the worst ever happens.
|
|
