3-2-1 start.. data today and tomorrow..

In this short entry I will talk about ways to backup your file and why it is easier than many people think to create a routine for it. Most of us have had that sinking feeling as we try to find something in the massive clutter of our system and are not able to find it for a while. Think of how you would feel if everyone of your files were gone or scrambled on your systems. Not good I bet.

It is not truly hard to create a system to keep the data safe, yes it will cost a little in some cases but it more than out weighs the frustration of losing your tax records or school papers.

One of the most basic ways is what is called the “3-2-1 system”. That is, three copies of the data, two different media’s and one of them off-site. With the size of the hard drives now have a few one or more terabyte external drives are not that expensive. You could also take one of the disk drives and put it in a bank box for safety, even store it at your parents or friends house. The two, that is two different medias part are simple as DVD disks. Most new machines have DVD writers and programs that allow you to use the DVD as a standard type drive. If you want to go old school then use of “tape drives” are also a good option.

There are even “cloud” based services that will back up your data to their storage for you. Depending on the amount of data and bandwidth you have it could take weeks to fully backup the data. It would cover the one off site location requirement of the “3-2-1 system”. After the initial upload of the data then keeping your files up-to-date would only require small uploads.

There are some options I would recommend, that will add an extra level of security. The first, if possible, have the data encrypted in some way. That way if by chance it was stolen the thieves could not read the data, or even if your “friend/family” got a bit nosy they are not able to read the information. Second, test the data from time to time to make sure it is being backed-up correctly. I have see cases that it looks like it is being backed up but the data is damaged so the backup is worthless. Not a fun time to find not only is your main but also the backup data is damaged as well. Lastly, set up a schedule of some sort to keep it up to date. There are programs that will automatically back up changes, Mac OSX has Time Machine, Linux has a few as does windows. If having question then talk to your local “geek” they will have ideas to help.

Now start that back up and you can sleep easier at night..”3-2-1 start”

Bye for now ()-()