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AngelaNeal
- Original Poster
- #10
I can't believe some businesses are still backing up with tape! I have worked as a consultant for a business backup service provider for years and have heard more horror stories and read more scary case studies about tape than any other option.
In my opinion, however, the most important thing is to have a Plan B. Never put all your data in one basket, so to speak.
I use cloud computing and multiple local storage drives, although I am small potatoes when it comes to the amount of data I have, and would recommend a professional offsite service.
Don't think I am allowed to put a link in a post, as it can be seen a bad ettiquete, but if anyone is interested in a site that offers lots more info and a 30 day free trial, PM me and I would be happy to share the link. (And no, it's not my company and I don't get an affiliate fee or anything.
)
In my opinion, however, the most important thing is to have a Plan B. Never put all your data in one basket, so to speak.
I use cloud computing and multiple local storage drives, although I am small potatoes when it comes to the amount of data I have, and would recommend a professional offsite service.
Don't think I am allowed to put a link in a post, as it can be seen a bad ettiquete, but if anyone is interested in a site that offers lots more info and a 30 day free trial, PM me and I would be happy to share the link. (And no, it's not my company and I don't get an affiliate fee or anything.
)
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Salt & Paper
- Original Poster
- #11
Apple Time Machine backups to NAS in the office, which is on a VPN so backups can happen regardless of location, and then then each 'work' directory is backed up to cloud-based hosting.
In addition, the websites and all revisions/ forks are all managed by SVN which synchs copies between individual machines and then gets backed up to the office NAS and test/ production servers on the Internet.
Test and production databases are exported to SQL files locally every day and backed up by the hosting companies managing the servers too.
In addition, the websites and all revisions/ forks are all managed by SVN which synchs copies between individual machines and then gets backed up to the office NAS and test/ production servers on the Internet.
Test and production databases are exported to SQL files locally every day and backed up by the hosting companies managing the servers too.
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I use Crashplan http://www.crashplan.com/ offsite backup. I have the family package so both mine and my partners laptops backup to it as well as our pc (for $6 a month). This backs up all of our personal and business stuff.
Our host backs up our site every 6 hours. I plan to set up Filezilla server so I can automatically download my own backups each night which would also get backed up to Crash Plan as well. I manually download a backup of the database every now and again but probably not often enough.
Our host backs up our site every 6 hours. I plan to set up Filezilla server so I can automatically download my own backups each night which would also get backed up to Crash Plan as well. I manually download a backup of the database every now and again but probably not often enough.
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Q
Quest Cloud Solutions Ltd
- Original Poster
- #15
Hi Talay,
Thought I'd put my 2 cents in as we get this question all the time. Cloud backup is secure for a number of reasons...
1. It is transmitted in encrypted format (usually AES 256 - 1 step above military grade encryption) via an SSL Internet connection
2. The data-centres are usually like Fort Knox (layers of barbed wire fences, anti-tailgating systems, only authorised personnel allowed in, swipe card entry, and you have to be escorted around the facility at all times)
3. The data-centre physical and virtual security (i.e. firewalls) is always going to be much better than that in your office because that's their selling point
4. The data remains compressed and encrypted on the data-centres hard drives - even if someone managed to nick the actual SAN drive from the data-centre, it would be useless to them
5. The data is stored in a fully redundant RAID configuration, usually across multiple sites
6. It's "safe" in that it is automated, usually with something like 30 days retention... you don't have to rely on humans to remember to backup each day
Naturally there are concerns about security, and the likes of Sony's network being cracked doesn't help the fact - but even if a hacker chose to go after the data-centre, why would they then decide to go after you as well? Bear in mind your data is essentially on a separate network, with another layer of security, within the data-centre. (One thing I will say, is that you should definitely check where your data will be stored, geographically; the reason I say this is that if you store it with an American company (i.e. Microsoft 365), your data can be accessed by the US Government at any point with "due cause", even if it stored in a UK data-centre! It's always best to do your back-up/cloud environments with a UK provider for this reason, though you still need to make sure they are storing it in a UK data-centre as many outsource it to other countries).
If someone wanted your data, they are much more likely to break down your office door and nick your server or hack into your office network and take it from there!
Sorry for the lengthy reply, but I hope it was informative
Cheers!
Thought I'd put my 2 cents in as we get this question all the time. Cloud backup is secure for a number of reasons...
1. It is transmitted in encrypted format (usually AES 256 - 1 step above military grade encryption) via an SSL Internet connection
2. The data-centres are usually like Fort Knox (layers of barbed wire fences, anti-tailgating systems, only authorised personnel allowed in, swipe card entry, and you have to be escorted around the facility at all times)
3. The data-centre physical and virtual security (i.e. firewalls) is always going to be much better than that in your office because that's their selling point
4. The data remains compressed and encrypted on the data-centres hard drives - even if someone managed to nick the actual SAN drive from the data-centre, it would be useless to them
5. The data is stored in a fully redundant RAID configuration, usually across multiple sites
6. It's "safe" in that it is automated, usually with something like 30 days retention... you don't have to rely on humans to remember to backup each day
Naturally there are concerns about security, and the likes of Sony's network being cracked doesn't help the fact - but even if a hacker chose to go after the data-centre, why would they then decide to go after you as well? Bear in mind your data is essentially on a separate network, with another layer of security, within the data-centre. (One thing I will say, is that you should definitely check where your data will be stored, geographically; the reason I say this is that if you store it with an American company (i.e. Microsoft 365), your data can be accessed by the US Government at any point with "due cause", even if it stored in a UK data-centre! It's always best to do your back-up/cloud environments with a UK provider for this reason, though you still need to make sure they are storing it in a UK data-centre as many outsource it to other countries).
If someone wanted your data, they are much more likely to break down your office door and nick your server or hack into your office network and take it from there!
Sorry for the lengthy reply, but I hope it was informative
Cheers!
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Emails are often overlooked, most people trust their provider with their emails and consider this safe. Which in my opinion is a major oversight and only something I have learnt personally the hard way, having lost 2-3 years of personal emails after entrusting a 3rd party to provide the email service. I woke up one morning to find out the server my emails had been hosted on had crashed all its data lost, Even worse, they were unable to restore the backups they had performed!
The cost of backing up emails locally from your computer has been reduced a huge amount over the past few years so is certainly something I feel that should be in ever businesses tool box.
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I think the typical approach will differe hugely within small companies, depending hugely on the setup of their IT infrastructure. Whilst more and more companies seem to becoming more clued up when it comes to backing their cruicial data up the one key area most people seem to overlook is the restore.
Restoring the data is as cruicial if not more cruicial then the actual backups. Regular restore testing should be at the top of everyones backup plan and is something we offer to our clients allowing them to sleep easy knowing not only have they backed up but should they require to restore their entire server we have it under control.
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Thats what I thought until I need to restore some files from livedrive recently and couldn't
. Support is crap and fortunately I had another backup. I was one of the early users and at some point they changed servers and some files got mangled, shocking.Anyway the expert view is that your data should be in 3 places. So I use livedrive (for now but will be moving to another service), backup using time machine on mac and obviously have the original copy on my HD.
Gary
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HungryHorse
- Original Poster
- #27
I do occasionally but I also have backups pushed off to various locations online, then have those backups pulled into other locations so that there is no way to intrude via one system into the rest and destroy all backups. These are also in geographically dispersed locations of course, different datacenters.
In addition to the above methods all website source code etc is kept in a Git repositories which is backed up in a similar way.
In addition to this I intend to get my hands on Google Drive as soon as its out! I'm hoping it to be a better alternative Dropbox. Alternatively "Cubby" has just been announced from GoToMyPC which is again similar to Dropbox but doesn't have the ridiculous requirement to re-structure all of your directories and files into the magic Dropbox folder.
The result is that data is all over the place, so perhaps not so "secure" (though I only store data with providers who have a good reputation and service, such as UKBackup) but I'm more concerned about making sure that it definitely exists somewhere should something go wrong.
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I use Macrium reflect. Set up to backup as an Image and individual folders onto 2 raid 1 configured drives (4 drives in total)
I've had a complete failure and complete loss of data and took almost 6 weeks to set back up.
Never ever again.
I've also considered http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/sm/WF02a/15351-15351-4237916.html?dnr=1 to use as a dedicated backup machine
Especially as you can now get £100 cashback if you look a bit harder
I've had a complete failure and complete loss of data and took almost 6 weeks to set back up.
Never ever again.
I've also considered http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/sm/WF02a/15351-15351-4237916.html?dnr=1 to use as a dedicated backup machine
Especially as you can now get £100 cashback if you look a bit harder
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Q
Quest Cloud Solutions Ltd
- Original Poster
- #29
That's something we see everyday... and most people only realise its implications after experiencing a total loss...
One of our clients religiously backed up to a tape drive EVERY NIGHT and occasionally to DVDs... and stored the tapes, tape drive and server all in the same room. One day the air conditioning failed, fried the server and tape drive, and warped the tapes. He had to go to a specialist data recovery firm who charged him an extortionate amount to get the data off of the tapes. He definitely learnt his lesson the hard way!
One of our clients religiously backed up to a tape drive EVERY NIGHT and occasionally to DVDs... and stored the tapes, tape drive and server all in the same room. One day the air conditioning failed, fried the server and tape drive, and warped the tapes. He had to go to a specialist data recovery firm who charged him an extortionate amount to get the data off of the tapes. He definitely learnt his lesson the hard way!
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HungryHorse
- Original Poster
- #30
This is great as long as they are kept in a completely separate location to the original system, in case of a disaster such as a fire.
Would probably go for making backups to an external drive too, just incase there is an issue with the data written to the discs.
Thats what I thought until I need to restore some files from livedrive recently and couldn't
This raises another good point.
How many people actually test their backup procedures periodically? i.e. if you backup to DVD's, do you check if the data is on them after writing, do you then check again periodically such as once a month? If your data is stored on an external drive, do you try pulling it back onto your main system sometimes and checking all is OK? This is even more important when using something like LiveDrive, as garyk points out with his problem above!
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HungryHorse
- Original Poster
- #31
At least he got his data back. I do feel for these people who lose data.
My Dad backs up to a single external drive which he keeps next to his Mac.
I've told him numerous times that he should use some additional online service and how easy these are to use these days but he doesn't really understand or think it's that important. I have offered to sort it all out for him but he doesn't seem to be too interested in paying (not that he couldn't afford it, just that he's failing to see the big problem). The loss of loads of photos that cannot be replaced, the loss of music which has cost a lot money to purchase... would be a huge shame.
Backup needs to become more main stream. I think I read about Microsoft's SkyDrive being built into Windows 8 which will be good.
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I use a variety of backups.
There's still room for improvement, such as storing the hard disc in a fireproof safe and taking a mirror image of my C drive, but to be honest if I lost the PC/hard disc I'd just start with a fresh install, reinstall apps and download my data from the quickest available backup. I think I have most of the bases covered.
- Dropbox backs up my important document folders, but is limited for space. I've got 8GB of space
- I use Cobian backup to back up main files every day to a d: drive in the computer
- Every week I back up to an external hard drive, but admittedly this is often kept by the PC, so in the event of a robbery that'd probably go as well.
- I use AVG Live Kive. It's good, and for £55 per year has unlimited space, but is slow to backup when you have gigabytes of data
- I mirror main folders between my PC and laptop, but this is done only once every few weeks
There's still room for improvement, such as storing the hard disc in a fireproof safe and taking a mirror image of my C drive, but to be honest if I lost the PC/hard disc I'd just start with a fresh install, reinstall apps and download my data from the quickest available backup. I think I have most of the bases covered.
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Whilst FTP storage has its uses it certainly isn't a suitable product for most people. Much more suited to backing up a web server or linux based system then a windows server or joe blogs's desktop.
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J
JohnGeek
- Original Poster
- #36
I back up my data using Handy Backup 7, it can back up files, emails, databases.
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