How Often Should I Backup My Data?

A Backup Article Contributed by Daniel Jones

Frequency of Data Backup Depends on the Application.

If you are in charge of a network environment with mission critical data stored on your servers, then even nightly backups may not be enough. If, on the other hand, you are thinking about backing up the data on your home computer then the question becomes more complex. How much time do you spend working on your computer? How often does the information stored on the computer change?

If we are talking about a few e-mails and pictures of the grandchildren, then a weekly or even monthly data backup may be enough. If you are in the middle of a tax audit, then you will probably want something more often.

Simple Rule of Thumb for Data Backup

I usually recommend the following formula to calculate the weekly data backups one should do. Take the amount you figure your time is worth to you, multiply it by the number of hours per week you use the computer, divided by 100. So for example, if you estimate your time to be worth $20/hour and you spend 5 hours per week on your home computer, then a weekly data backup is about right. On the other hand if you figure your time is worth $50/hour and spend 10 hours per week working on the computer, a nightly data backup is probably worth your time to schedule.

A Basic Data Backup Schedule

The classic data backup schedule involved a backup to tape run at the end of each business day, so 5 backups per week. The 5th backup each week was saved as a weekly backup and was archived rather then being re-used in the next week. This pattern was continued until the end of the month. The last data backup of the month was likewise stored as a monthly backup and the last backup of the year was stored as the yearly backup. The total usage breaks down as follows:

Daily x4 tapes

Weekly x4 tapes

Monthly x11 tapes

Yearly 1/year

Of course you would need to modify this schedule if you were backing up less often or were not using re-writable media.