For most people, when the word backup is mentioned in connection with data, the first thing that comes into their minds is an external hard drive, DVDs or tapes. You cannot blame them since this have for many years been the traditional forms of storage. Some people may also think of an offsite facility such as cloud storage providers.
However, a wise person should know that on both business and personal level, a good backup strategy involves having several backups incase one was lost or damaged. Sad to say, many individuals do not deem this necessary. Most people think they are just fine with one external hard drive. This is false and if you are one of those people, you are terribly mistaken. Think of the following situations:
When disaster strikes unexpected
In the year 2010, Nashville experienced a very powerful storm. It started out as something small but within no time, it had blow into a fully-fledged violent storm complete with lightning and floods. The storm was very destructive tearing down anything it found on the way. Food and fresh water became scarce as everything in the stores was damaged. Along with all food supplies, the storm destroyed all local backups. This in turn created a business disaster that took a very long time to end. Some of the businesses are trying to recover even up to today.
Recently my good pal all the way in Vietnam experienced a fire calamity at his building. Even though the fire was contained as soon as possible, it had already burned down several offices along with all backup systems. my friend was operating a headhunting and professional HR business. After this accident, he eventually lost his clients and his business collapsed. I still get a cold chill down my spine thinking about it.
What do I have to lose as an individual?
As a personal computer user, you might not think you are at risk or you have anything to lose. If that is your thought, think again! We are living in the technology age and most of our lives are now digitalized. For instance, we store all our photos, music, movies and documents on our PCs or laptops. Imagine losing your only video copy of your wedding, photos of that once in a lifetime trip you went to Europe or if you are a student, all your assignments and coursework. It is true you might not have anything to lose financially, but you will miss a significant part of your life and. That would be a bitter price to pay for being reckless.
That is why investing in a solid and reliable backup system is imperative, since it will hold no matter what. You may wonder how I go about this matter. Well that is why I am here to help you with your choices. You have two main options which are offline backup and online backup. You might already be familiar with both modes of backups but the question on your mind would be why you have to use both of them. Does not only having one backup enough? Let us see.
Offline backup methods
In simple terms, this refers to using any means of storage that does not involve the internet. These means include tapes, CDs, DVDs, blueray discs, memory cards, flash drives, and external hard drives and so on. For many years, these have proved valuable storage means but like any other technology, they have their pros and cons.
Advantages
- It is fast – The greatest advantage of this method of storage is fast backup and restoration. For those who have huge amounts of data, you know what I am talking about. Imagine trying to backup 100GB online. Even with high-speed connections, it surely would be a long and tiresome work. The same case applies when you are trying to get the information off online to use it somewhere else.
- Readily accessible – One major reason individuals prefer offline methods of storage are that they are easily accessible. When you need to listen to a certain track you have not heard in a while all you need to do is connect your external hard drive to your PC and get it. DVDs, CDs and flash disks are available in your home and office.
- A measure of security – Unlike in online storage where security breaches might be a threat, you can secure your offline backup media in your drawer and lock it or if the information is to valuable, you can lock it away in a safe.
- Are portable – Another advantage of these offline backups is that you can carry or move them around. However, this might not be a good idea especially if you are using an external hard drive. The good thing is that you can use one external drive with multiple computers.
Disadvantages
- They are prone to disasters. Even if you went and bought the most protected external hard drive or blueray disc, you still would not be able to protect it from natural calamities such as hurricanes, fires, floods and storms. A power surge caused by thunderstorms is able to fry all your drives. If you think about such things, offline backups become less and less appealing.
- They can be stolen. A thief can break into your house or office and steal your external drive, flash disk or DVDs, and just like that, your entire backup will be gone. Stealing your backup is just the tip of the ice bag. The thief can decide to go ahead and access the information on those backups, which could lead to blackmail or identity theft. Worse still, the thief might have access to work information that can put you in a lot of trouble with your bosses.
- Hard drives easily fail. Research indicates that the most common offline backup method today is the use of external hard drives. If this is so in your case, then you have genuine reason to worry. Hard drives fail all the time. It does not matter how expensive it is or how well it is protected. Numerous reasons lead to hard drive failure but I will spare you the boring details.
All you need to know is that they frequently fail. To really see how grave the danger is, ask yourself what you would do if your hard drive had a failure right now.
- Tape backup failure – Tapes are considered as one of the most durable forms of offline backup methods. Nevertheless, even this ancient media backup can fail. The foremost reason of this is exposure to magnet. In fact, any kind of magnetic field can result to tape failure. You might not intentionally expose them to magnet but sometimes you do not know what object has magnet and which does not.
Online Backup methods
Online backup systems involve storage of information online. Certainly, this is the most convenient and secures way to store massive data in an offsite remote location. In the past, this was only a dream of a few large and wealthy corporations. Nevertheless, as technology advances, they services are now available for all businesses and even individuals. Let us see the pros and cons of this system.
Advantages
- Your data is encrypted. When you choose a credible company to do your online backup, they will encrypt your data with highly sophisticated technology such as 448-bit Blowfish encryption or 256-bit AES. This will ensure that no one will access your data unauthorized.
- Safe from natural disasters and theft – Unlike onsite backup systems, you do not have to worry that you will lose your data when disaster strikes. All your data is in the cloud so floods, hurricanes, thunderstorm and fires cannot reach it. Nevertheless, you will have to find a credible company that has protection against these natural disasters and have contingency plans in place in case they are affected.
- Easily accessible – Provided you have an internet connection, you can access your information from any part of the world. This is very usefully especially when your work involves traveling a lot and you detest carrying many electronic gadgets around. Some companies even offer mobile applications for you to access your data so you do not even need to carry your laptop, just use your phone.
- The setup has been made in advance. Setting up your own infrastructure for online storage will cost you a fortune and you might not even get it right. Even if you hire IT experts to do the job for you, it still would be expensive since you need to pay for constant maintenance services.
Disadvantages
- Lack of direct control – The moment you decide to use online storage services you forgo the privilege of having direct control over your data. It is true you will be able to access them through a client software and internet but it will not be as straightforward as plugging your external into a computer.
- Slower access of data – This is probably the biggest turnoff for many people. It will take you quiet sometime to obtain your data from the internet and especially if you it is huge.
- There must be an internet connection. It is vital to note that this system purely relies on internet connection. Thus, if you do not have access to internet then you are locked out of this service. Furthermore, your internet connection must be fast and strong for you to enjoy this service to the full.
In conclusion
The main difference between the two systems is that offline backup gives you easier, direct and faster access of your backup data while online backup offers highly secure data that you can access from anywhere. You might wonder which the best system to use is. Honestly, none is better than the other is. Thus, you must use both systems that have a solid backup plan. http://www.bestbackups.com/
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