Backup Basics, a Backup Introduction
A Backup Article Contributed by Anand R
Importance of Backup
When a computer security incident or other unforeseen event occurs that results in a loss of data, recovery from the incident or event requires up-to-date backups and proven methods of restoring the data. Aftermath of crash may be be disastrous. You may not be able to recover the disaster. Viruses, software failures, power failures, human errors, hard drive failures are only a few examples of what could destroy the data on a hard drive, including all documents, pictures, emails and other files.
Together with documents and pictures, it's a critical operation to save the emails, attachments, address book and other important data from within the email client; otherwise in case of a computer problem the user will find himself in the impossibility to get them back, and this can be a really unwanted situation especially for webmasters or people who rely on their emails.
Archival Backup
A backup is a copy of the data and programs on your computer. With some systems, you can back up all the data and programs on your hard drive each time you back up. Some systems allow you to do incremental backups. This means that you back up only the files that have changed since the last time you backed up. This is sometimes called an archival backup.A routine that makes it possible to back up only the files that have changed since the last backup.
Incremental Backup
If the backup saves everything on your hard drive and your hard drive fails, you have to restore the data to a new drive. This one backup will restore everything for you. If you have incremental backups, however, you must restore your most recent complete backup and then each incremental backup. Making a copy of only the files that have changed since the last backup instead of backing up every file. Incremental backup saves a lot of time and can save storage space.
Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery means getting a copy of your data off site i.e., away from your production server and available for recovery. Redundant systems do not necessarily provide for Disaster Recovery. If the target server is located at a different site than the production server, DR is provided.Disaster recovery is preparing for the worst.One simple step is to take one backup off site each week
Computer Backups Frequency
Backups should be done after each day the system is used. Ideally, your practice should keep generations of backups. With people, one generation is older than the following generation. The same is true for backups. Keep at least 2 weeks of daily backup generations. Another good plan to ensure you have needed backups is to remove one backup each month. Save it and do not reuse it. Replace it with new backup media. By doing this, you accomplish two important goals.
First, you replace your backup media systematically so it doesn't wear out. Second, you have saved yet another generation of your backups so that you can go back to it if you don't discover for a long time that some data are missing.
