How to Create a Data Backup Plan
Posted on January 21, 2010 at 5:45 am
Choosing a backup method can be frustrating, and involves a lot of trial and error to find the method that works best for you. Keeping your data safe requires using more than one backup method, because there is always a chance that your backup will be unavailable or corrupt when you need it most. Create a backup plan and stick to it.
Create Two Backups
Having a backup of your most important data is crucial, but there is always a chance that you may not be able to access it. If you backup your data to an external hard drive, but leave it when you travel, there is always a chance that you will need it when you are on the road.
The easiest solution is to create two backups, one of which is portable. Either create a backup with an online service (in the cloud) that you can access from any internet connection, or create a backup to some portable media (flash drive, iPod, etc.) to take with you. This way you will always have a recent backup to turn to, even when you are away from home.
Create a Backup in Another Physical Location
After 9/11, a lot of businesses started to take disaster recovery plans more seriously. Many large companies spend a fortune creating data warehouses in off-site locations to backup their data, because they realized that having a backup in the same physical location is moot if that physical location is severely damaged or destroyed.
Having an off-site backup is just as important to the average home PC user or Freelancer as it is to multi-billion dollar companies. Fires, floods, and natural disasters can happen at any time, and it will give you peace of mind to know that a copy of your crucial data will survive these catastrophes.
Even though your home or renter’s insurance may cover the replacement of your PC, it is unlikely that it will cover the cost of data recovery. Mozy, iDrive, and Carbonite are three easy-to-use services which allow you to backup your data to the cloud.
Choose Easy-to-Use Backup Services and Software
There are a lot of software packages and services that make creating a backup easy and quick. The above mentioned backup services are all easy to use with software that is easy to install.
Apple has created their Time Machine application, which is also extremely easy to use. Microsoft SyncToy is a free application that allows you to synchronize folders.
If you ever need to restore your data, the last thing you need is a long list of complicated steps. Usually time is of the essence, and a very complicated software or process is only going to cause frustration.
Before finalizing your backup plan, try out a few different options, and make sure that you’re comfortable with creating and restoring the backup.
Schedule Regular Automatic Backups
Do not assume that you will always remember to start your backup application. Most backup software allows you to schedule backups on a regular basis. Some applications do backups in the background or wait until your PC idles to start.
It is easier to set it up and forget about it than realize you forgot to backup crucial data when you need it.
» Filed Under Computer Tips
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Good article overall, but I would have also mentioned buying a home server such as Windows Home Server. It automatically backs up your computers (including Macs) and allows you to easily restore a PC in under an hour.
Purchasing an additional PC solely for backups is not a luxury that a lot of people have. The options I referred to are budget friendly, easy to implement, and do not require maintaining yet another computer.
Hi Elise,
I agree with you that doing so is not a luxury everyone has, but your article was not entitled “Budget ways to backup your data”.
It’s like someone writing about the best cars for 2009 and not mentioning any luxury brands because “most” people would think it is too expensive.
I personally don’t think a HP MediaSmart server for $249 (LX version) is a huge luxury if it can backup all 5 of my PCs at home regularly.
Worth a mention I believe, we’re not talking about a SAN or anything like that and it’s becoming very popular in homes now.
If you notice, the article is not written assuming that the individual has a home network and can manage multiple machines. There are a lot of people out there that just plug their laptop or desktop into their cable modem or DSL modem, and have never attempted any degree of home networking. It is far less likely that someone with a home network would this basic level of guidance.
If we ever do an article specifically about Backups using a home network, additional PCs, servers, and NAS devices will be fair game.
You make a good point about having two backups, because the reality is, you can never have enough backups. Hard drive are a great solution when traveling, but for your office backups … don’t look for the cheapest solution. There are online backup companies out there that aren’t just selling software; they actually work with small businesses to make sure backups run smoothly.
Backup My Info! monitors all of their clients’ backups DAILY to make sure everything is working properly. That way if clients are traveling or unable to monitor the backups themselves, they have a trusted vendor to troubleshoot for them.
The “easy to use” and “inexpensive” backup vendors are flawed in that they expect their clients to troubleshoot and restore themselves. Unless you have a dedicated IT person onsite that is monitoring backup activities daily, there is a risk that when a disaster happens, you will not get your data back
@Lindsey
If the backup solution providers catering to home and small business users were so flawed, they wouldn’t consistently get good reviews from actual customers, and they wouldn’t be making any money. Most of them also provide excellent customer support, but you have to take the time to evaluate them to find the one that fits you best in terms of price and the level of technical support you will need. The average home user or small business owner doesn’t have the means to hire a dedicated IT person. Furthermore, as we saw with the Microsoft/Danger Sidekick debacle, even multi-billion dollar companies can’t manage to get a proper backup and restore it sometimes (probably more often than we hear via the media). There is no magic bullet when it comes to backing up and restoring data, but the key is to make sure you have multiple backups so that if one fails you can restore from the other. There are backup providers that have 24/7 support and cost less than $200 bucks a year, which I think is still reasonable for an individual, family, single proprietor, or small business (with five employees or less).
An alternative is using a gmail drive and your gmail account as an offsite backup….there are also free ware software. The problem with carbonite, mozy, etc… is you have to pay and the support is pretty bad…plus you run the risk of potential data loss like with what happene with Carbonite last year…when they lost 7000 customers data…just vanished..
I currently use Mozy to backup all my data offline and it works great. I still don’t have a good solution for backing up my operating system though, everything seems too complicated, i.e. Acronis, cloning, etc. I wish there was an easy way to do this.