BACKUP BASICS :- WHAT TO DO BEFORE AND AFTER BACKING UP

Backup Basics:-

We live in an era of digital data, we need to backup our data regularly. Neglecting it could mean that the song collection you made in years or your most cherished memories captured in pictures or the important files which were the backbone of your entire business could be destroyed. All this could happen to you when you mistakenly deleted some data or your mobile was stolen or some virus problem occurred or anything and you didn't bother to backup your data because you thought all these things happen to others and not you. We mean here that you will NEVER see your data again. Of course you can recover your data but recoveries are not 100% guaranteed and on the other hand if you formatted your device then? Care is always better than cure. If you read our last post you would have understood what is backup but we should not forget some basics that should be followed before, during and after backing up.

What should be done before backing up?

There are few things to consider before backing up:-

1. Prioritise your data:- Today average user has insane amount of data. Backing up the whole hard drive is very difficult and moreover madness. Every data is not equally important. For example, it would be excruciating to lose the childhood and family pictures in comparison to losing the Miley Cyrus songs. So the first thing you should do is prioritise your data. Backup only that data that is irreplaceable and it does not matter how much amount of storage space or bandwidth is required to protect it.

2. Delete duplicates:- Having duplicates of backed up files that is backing up the same file again in one backup drive or at the same Cloud Storage Provider or CPS will consume extra space on your CPS or backup drive for nothing. You should download a deduplication software to care of such files.

3. Compress:- Compression is very important while backup. Backing up 1 GB data instead of 6 at the cost of few minutes of compression is a very good deal as at the time of storage it will take less space on your backup drive and CPS. It will also use less bandwidth in the case of cloud storage. Not compressing your backup files is worst than having duplicates of them. What a compression software does is it lists a data only once and refers back to it again and again when ever its required in the non compressed file. To make it clearer, lets take a sentence. For example, " I do what I think". Assign each word a number.

1. I

2. do

3. what

4. think

Then our sentence would just be 12314, using only four words where one word which is redundant is deleted and upon being called refers to the piece of information that's already available (1, in this case) - thus making the sentence smaller.

So you should use compression tools like WinRAR or 7-zip to compress your files before backup.

What should be done after backing up?

There are few things to consider after backing up:-

1. Keep Backing Up:- The best practice for effective backing up: regular backups. We know we've made this clear, but backing up your machine regularly can protect you from the unexpected. Files you'd want to back up from time to time might include data such as your recent documents, application data and, most importantly, system backups. Sure, you can always reinstall Windows (or any other OS) and your apps in case of failure, but switching to a recently created system backup (a.k.a a disaster recovery backup) will ensure that the transition is much smoother. You could just program your OS to automatically back up for you in scheduled time intervals. 

2. Keep verifying your backup data:- You want to ensure that the backups you're taking are indeed being stored in a retrievable manner. Imagine spending all that time to back up data only to find out that it wasn't being done as you intended, or - to your absolute horror - that the files weren't really being stored at all! It might be time consuming, but verifying that your backed up data is indeed present and in its latest version is essential to ensure reliable backups. 

You should also consider these things to protect your important files:-

1. Back up on physical devices and the cloud:- External hard drives or USBs are very susceptible to physical damage in case of accidents or disasters. Storing on the cloud, on the other hand, poses bandwidth limits and a potential secmily threat to your data. So just to be safe, make sure you have both, physical as well as cloud backups of your most important files.

2. Keep your computer clean:- We're talking about infections of course. Be extremely aware of e-mail attachments and anything else you download off the internet. Regularly scan your computer and ensure that your files are all clean before proceeding to carry out your next backup. You don't want a virus corrupting the drive you've already backed up your data to, do you?

3. Protect sensitive data:- Make sure your sensitive data and its backups are protected. You can either password protect your documents or use the encryption tools built into your OS. Also, make sure you completely destroy any media device that's become dysfunctional before discarding it. There are more ways of recovering your data than you know.

4. Don't save your backup data in the same drive as your OS:-This may sound like basic advice. But is a big no-no. Most software products Install or save files in the My Documents folder of your primary drive (usually C:\\). But this is the worst place to have them saved. Why? Sometimes, there are software failures or viruses, which would require you to re install your OS and thus format the entire drive.This would mean losing all the data including backup data on your drive, and is exactly why you should always have separate drives for your backup data and your operating system. You can just partition the drive using partition software and save your data in the new partition - beware though that doing this may violate the warranty conditions on your hard disk. But you should never backup on your PC, you can just get an additional internal or external drive to store your backup data.

There you go. We've covered the absolute basic things to do to ensure that your data is safe. These are generic measures that everyone must take. We'll be focusing' on the more specific backup solutions available to you over the next few posts.