The Importance of Backups

Hard drives are one of the few moving parts in a computer and are very sensitive ones at that. As such, they have many different ways in which they can fail. One way is by what’s called a “head crash.” Hard drives are like a more high-tech record player.  The platters spin anywhere from 5,400rpms up to 15,000rpms while the head reads the data. The head never actually touches the platters and instead uses air pressure to float above it, reading the magnetic data. If the head touches the platters, it could actually scrape the thin magnetic material off of the platter. This can happen due to electronic failure, sudden power loss, physical shock, contamination of the drive itself, or just typical wear and tear. On top of that failure, there can also be a failure of the spindle that spins the platters, the actuator arm that moves the head, or even the electronic board and software that drives the hard drive. There’s also a possibility of the data itself being corrupt or unreadable, whether that be due to what’s called a bad sector or the data just not being written properly.

There are a number of ways to mitigate the loss of data due to a hard drive failure. The most common way is through backups. There are a number of ways to backup data depending on how much you are planning to back up. The simplest way, which works best if you only have a few files or folders to backup that are relatively small in size, is to copy the files to a flash drive that can store the files you want. The drawback to that though, is that if you change the files, your backup doesn’t change accordingly. What might be better would be a backup that will automatically update to show the changes you make. There are two avenues of option when it comes to up-to-date backups: automated whole-system backups and online backups. Both are great options and each serves a different purpose.

Online backups are restricted in that they typically have a limit on how much data you can store. Common uses for online backups are storing extremely critical data off-site. This way your tax data, company data, and even digital pictures of family members who are no longer with you are safe, even in the event of a natural disaster. Many of the online backup solutions also allow you to access the data through a website to make sure it is all there.

Automated whole-system backups have the advantage in that they are designed to get you back up and running with as little downtime as possible. They typically employ image-based backup software and an external hard drive. The software essentially takes a digital “snapshot” of your system, the files, programs, settings, everything, and saves that snapshot to the external hard drive. Ideally, you have an external hard drive that is a couple times larger than the drive you are backing up so that you have multiple backups in case, for instance, you accidentally delete a file and can’t retrieve it. The advantage here is that you have a drive that can be easily disconnected and moved if you are in the home during disaster as well as being able to have multiple backups to fall back on incase a file is corrupt.