FYI - June issue of PC World has article on data backup and recovery (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

The current issue of PC World is a "how-to" guide. Given recent discussions about data archival, I wanted to specifically point out the section of data backup and recovery.
The article address backup frequency, methods, hardware. It also talks about using the backup to recover from a system failure or other data loss.
It's a general article, and not so much a step-by-step how-to guide. I've skimmed it, and it looks like it's got some helpful information.
And for the harddrive backup zealots it's even got a sidebar about using removable harddrives as a backup mechanism.
If you're interested in knowing more about backing up your computer files, or have questions about other PC issues, the latest PC World may be of interest.

 

[Chris]

BTW, as a network administrator, we use multiple backup methods; but I'm really found of one that has saved us many times: we keep a 3 120G drives in external firewire cases, and have Retrospect set to backup directly to them.

Using it in this manner, we've had no problems storing and retrieving from months in the past.. we manage to keep more then 6 months of online, full system backups on hand.

It's a great compliment to our emergency backup procedures (DLT, Ghost images) and is so fast it's mindboggling.

 

[AjayM]

I'm also a Network admin and have 3 methods of disaster protection, plus some additional safeguards for other information.

First is just using a simple RAID 5 setup in the file server, I'll never live without it again. The most common need for having a backup is because a drive fails.

Second I keep a full mirror of our main file server on an offsite server (with a RAID 1 setup). Every night we do a diff backup to the machine (well the first time took awhile) which is located 30 miles from the office.

Third is just plain ol' tape based on a semi-modified GFS schedule. All tapes go home with me and are put into a fire-proof safe. Whenever we get a hurricane/tropical storm coming close to the area some of the tapes come out of my house and go to the next manager/executive that lives furthest in the other direction from me (essentially 30 miles in the other direction).

Since we're a software development company our source code is obviously very important, that is backed up from the source safe server twice a day to the main file server (which follows the above backup schedule), and then twice a month all of those backups are written onto optical media (CD's for right now), which are sealed away in a safe in a safe place (not with me).

I also burn all of the marketing departments images onto DVD when needed, but that is more for saving hard drive space for stuff that is rarely used (like booth graphics, old handouts, etc).

Andrew