What is the best way to perform a data backup? Everyone company should be backing up their data however with so many different types of backups out there, which one is best?
Before you perform a data backup, lets’ take a look at the different types of data backups available for your personal or business data.
- Full Data Backup – This is simple. It backups all files and folders selected. This is also commonly used as a first data backup followed by incremental data backups or differential data backups. The restore process is simple however full data backups consumes the most storage and can cause backups to take quite a bit of time.
- Differential Data Backup – You need a full data backup prior to starting differential data backups. This backup will only backup changes since performing the full data backup. This allows for fast backups and more efficient use of storage capacity.
- Incremental Data Backup – Almost the same as a differential data backup however after the initial full backup, subsequent backups store changes that have been made since the previous backup cycle whether it was a full or an incremental cycle.
With the launch of many online backup cloud services, you have to pay attention to their retention policy. Some of them have a standard 30-day delete. This helps to balance backups and online storage costs.
Some other important items to consider when setting up your backup strategy should include:
- Always keep your local data backup plugged in directly to the source computer being backed up or is connected to the local area network in a secure area.
- Local data backup is the most basic type of data backup to handle data-loss prevention.
- Locale data backup contains several downfalls including no offsite redundancy or cloud component.
- Cloud services backups or remote data backups allow to store data backups at an offsite location.
- Cloud services backups or remote data backups provides the strongest protection against natural disasters and unplanned downtime.
- Hybrid data backups copy data files to a physically remote location and offsite.
- Hybrid data backups integrates cloud backups and local backups to deliver fast restores and disaster recovery.
This is extremely important, data backups and disaster recovery are not the same and should be handled differently.
What is the best way to perform a data backup?
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