| off site BACKUP
Title : Off site backup
Audience : Small business off site backup operators.
Source : http://www.backupanytime.com/whitepaper.htm
Posted : Sept 07
Copyright : backupanytime original content.
Redistribution as is : No permission required (with
credits)
Modification : With written permission from backupanytime.
Off site backup is now ubiquitous in any quality data
backup road map to the point at which an on site only
backup is not considered an effective backup or even
a backup in the strictest modern sense of the word.
There are however a number of forms of off site backup.
The differences range from the level of automation provided
to the security of the data in transit and final off
site backup destination.
The chart below rates these types of off site backup
from a rate of 0 (reckless) upwards to 9 (robust) and
provides some reasoning for the given rating of the
off site backup system. In all of the hardware options
below it is assumed that the relevant media is stored
off site (weather that be manual off site backup or
automated off site backup) on completion.
| System |
Rating |
Notes |
| Pen
drive |
0 |
Unacceptable
data risk. Not a backup |
| Removable
hard drive |
2 |
As above,
moderately more reliable, increased potential loss
quantity. |
| Zip
drive |
3 |
More backup
specific than above but small quantity and fragile. |
| Tape
system |
5 |
Good traditional
option. Not trustworthy on its' own. |
| N.A.S. |
5 |
Modern,
functional, not meant to be portable day to day. |
| Online
backup |
8 |
Rating would
be higher bar provider risk. Careful choice may
be 9 |
| Online
backup with local raid and tape |
9+ |
As a small
business you can not be expected to do much more. |
The following listing explains the reason for the ratings
in a little more detail.
Pen drive :
Alias key ring drive, pocked drive, mini drive and dongle
drive. Pen drives are dangerous. They are cheap and
not so cheerful. Pen drives represent the ultimate in
convenience at the behest of security. You don't need
to suffer a major catastrophe to lose data on a pen
drive. They will do the that for you without the need
for theft, fire or flood. What is a pen drive? It is
a drive and media device which requires “safe
removal” and even when given same can “flash”
(put simply “flash” = “lose all contents”)
If you really must use a pen drive, use it for it's
intended purpose. Convenient carriage of data which
is backed up completely and off site totally independently
of the pen drive. Put simply, pen drives are very dangerous.
Pen drives are the silky tracksuits of data portability,
awful and you either know it or you don't.
Removable hard drive :
We have gone way up the food chain here but we are still
barely a life form. Removable drives are very fragile
and also require safe removal Best case scenario is
that you will handle it carefully, never drop it, always
remove it safely and then be the victim of unexplained
drive failure. Well that drive failure is not actually
unexplainable. Here is the explanation. The drive internals
spin at in excess of 7200 revs, the drive was produced
for about 10 Euro (regardless of what you paid) and
it is intended (if all goes very well) not to live forever.
Zip drive:
This low volume, low cost (if your intended volume is
low) option may be considered a bit over the hill for
this list. It does however in triplicate represent a
superior option to the above for micro office users.
Tape system:
Traditionally the lazy mans way out. Tape is complex,
demanding, involves manual management and the risk of
drive and media failure all at once. It remained for
some time the preferred option as it is a backup specific
device and costly enough to leave consumers feeling
they had gone some of the way to securing their data.
It is today however a good accompaniment to other backup
types as you will read below.
Online backup:
This is the the undisputed leader in off site backup.
The idea is not new. People sent small quantities of
data over standard phone lines and even radio signal
decades ago. What is new is the previously dreamed of
facility to automatically backup large quantities of
data off site with bank level encryption, high compression,
full reporting and on demand data verification.
Combination of raid, tape and online
backup:
This type of system is affordable to even very small
business and offers the redundancy of raid, local store
of tape and through online backup a share on usage requirement
of a corporate level backup system. This combination
if implemented correctly offers a belt and braces and
belt approach to business data backup.
Yes, pen drives and removable hard drives are cheap.
They present themselves however as a minefield for your
data to cross every day of its' short life expectancy.
If you look a little nearer the top shelf you will see
that the best data backup options have also come down
in price considerably and without the obvious quality
reduction in the bargain basement section. How much
will you save if your business fails due to your usage
of a non backup device for backup? That is a personal
question and an unpleasant one. We are not asking you.
We are asking you to ask yourself. If you feel the slightest
bit uncomfortable about it, call us. Do so before you
lose your data.
If you found this document helpful you may like to
visit www.backupanytime.com/whitepaper.htm
or our website proper at www.backupanytime.com
If you are a system administrator and would like technical
details please register your interest on our contact
page requesting membership of our private white
paper area for I.T. Professionals.
"Data outages can not be totally
avoided. They can and must be prepared for"
backupanytime, a team that makes and keeps commitments.
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