Your computer files are very crucial data you must always protect. This is the reason why data backup is important so you can prevent any accidental loss of user data, hardware failures, database corruption, or even fortuitous event both man-made and acts of God.
Building backup system is something you should think of because nowadays computer technology needs extensive and reliable backup system.
Here are a few questions you must consider as you backup your data. Depending on the circumstances, how often do the data change? How quickly do you need to recover the data? When is the best time to schedule backup? Do you need to store backups offsite?
In this article, we will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of using traditional backup and online backup.
Traditional backup
In broad sense, the common traditional backup techniques are disk-to-tape backup and disk-to-disk replication.
Disk-to-tape backup
With disk-to-tape, it is a full time job to manage because you need to ensure that the backups run and that they complete without errors. Or if there are any errors, they must be as few as possible. In addition to this, tapes are really expensive to keep. In times of recovering files, it is time consuming regardless of the file type.
Disk-to-disk
Another traditional backup system is disk-to-disk. Although it is better than the disk-to-tape in terms of file transfer speed and protection, it is costlier because it requires having a second system to replicate the process of sending data to another file server.
Online backup
How about online backup? This is different from traditional backup in terms of protection and other important features attributable to a good backup.
Convenient
Online backup resolves the problem of traditional backup such as manageability, cost and reliability.
Automatic
Using online backup constantly optimizes and update itself. Unlike tape backup where you need to babysit and worry about when its hardware is already outdated or tapes malfunctioned such as media being unreadable.
Fast
It also makes the data restoration fast and easy because it does not need old tapes to find a file or to have disks where you need to mount wholly snapshots for you to recover a single file.
Reliable
In times of human errors when you accidentally deleted or wrote over it , you would not need to call an IT expert to restore the data because it can previously restore files at its will. Unlike backups to tape or disk where data are exposed to risk like calamities or acts of man, online backup is onsite which is very helpful.
Easy
It does not require extra hardware like an external hard drive which put more money into it. Online backup is completely encrypted to backup servers before it leaves your computer.
So are you thinking now of using online backup? Indeed, online backup is better than traditional backup. But be careful when choosing your online backup provider. They are not all the same; some are expensive but not reliable and some are cheap but reliable. One last thing, you should also check are the plans and terms offered by online backup services. Choose one that suits what you really need.