WioP: A Guide To Data Storage And Backup

5 Options For Protecting Your Data
The personal data on your hard drive, including photos and videos is without a doubt the most important and valuable thing inside your computer, and is the only part of your computer which can not be replaced. It may be an irritating and sometimes expensive hassle replacing a failed memory chip or even a processor, but there is no replacing data once it is lost.

Simple hard drive failure may be the most common cause of data loss, the threat of smart Internet worms and viruses has become an increasing risk to data loss or corruption. Although it is impossible to provide absolute guaranteed protection for your hard drive, there are many different ways that you can minimise the risk by making regular backups of your information. Five of the more common methods of backing up data are discussed below:

1. USB Flash/Pen Drives

I must admit that so far I am a bit dubious about the longevity of some of these drives, but with capacities over 2GB available I think they provide an excellent way to transfer data from one computer to another. Important, valuable and irreplaceable files can be quickly saved on to one of these devices and transported to another computer for safe keeping. Installation and operation is simplicity at its best. As long as you're running on Windows Me or Later, you simply plug the device into an available USB port and the USB drive is instantly recognised as a new hard drive and appears as a folder along with your internal hard drives, CD drive etc…

Just about every computer produced over the last several years has USB ports included, with more modern systems supporting the USB 2.0 standard. USB 2.0 allows for data transfer rates of up to 480 MB/s, which is a tremendous improvement over the original USB speed limit of 12 MB/s, and allows a user to fill their drives with data in a relatively short period of time.

2. CD and DVD Writers/Re-Writers

With Prices of DVD Writers down to under Ł20 I can't understand why anyone with data to safeguard wouldn't have one of these. DVD Writers are virtually standard on all but base model PCs bought nowadays but if yours isn't already fitted with one or hasn't got an expansion slot to accommodate an internal DVD Writer, external devices supporting USB 2.0 or Firewire are available at very reasonable prices and offer greater flexibility and ease of installation.

With DVDs able to record up to a massive 8.4Gb on a single disk, CD-Writers are all but obsolete now but don't despair as these shiny new DVD Writers are also capable of writing data to blank CDs so you can still make "legal backup copies" of all your favourite music albums.

3. External Hard Drives

The name sort of gives this one away doesn't it? External hard drives are exactly the same type of hard drive you'll find inside your computer, but they come in their own shiny little case. The case will have at least one, and sometimes two data interfaces such as Ethernet, Firewire or USB (USB being the most common these days).

Capacities of external hard drives are rapidly increasing and prices are steadily falling making them an attractive option for data storage as having vast (upwards of 400Gb) quantities of portable data can at times, be invaluable to even the normal home computer user.

Using external hard drives as backup devices is becoming so popular, companies are starting to give away dedicated software to make backing up a simple point and click affair with some of their drives.

4. Additional Internal Hard Drives

By simply adding an additional hard drive to your system, you can protect yourself from data loss by copying it from your primary drive to your secondary drive. The installation of a second hard drive isn't difficult, but does require a basic understanding of the inner working of a computer which may scare off some users.

To increase the reliability and security of a second hard drive, you may consider installing a RAID array. RAID stands for a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, and can be configured in several different ways but for now we'll talk about RAID1. A RAID1 array requires two hard drives of equal size to be installed on a RAID controller, which will then copy all the information received on to both drives at the same time (hence "mirroring"). Many newer computers come with RAID controllers already built on to the motherboard, but the addition of a PCI slot controller card is relatively inexpensive and will instantly add RAID to any system. With a RAID1 array in place, if one hard drive fails, the system will continue to run on the remaining hard drive, and alert the user that the failed or defective drive may need to be replacing.

5. Online Storage

This services isn't cheap. Online Data Storage Companies generally charge a monthly fee that corresponds to the amount of storage capacity needed. In brief, they charge per Gb of storage you want and at the minute, prices are starting from Ł5 a month for 1Gb which could very quickly add up to more than you would spend on any of the other options discussed here. Online Data Storage Companies seem to be springing up all over the place at the minute though so expect prices to fall dramatically over the coming months.

Although it may be a convenient bonus to have access to your data anywhere an internet connection is available, there are a few limitations. Speed of transfer will always be an issue but especially so if you're transferring large amounts of data between your computer and your online storage facility. Remember, no matter how fast your internet connection is, it will never be as fast as data transfer from an internal, or USB hard drive or a DVD drive.

Security could be another issue to consider. Security is considered to be of exceptionally high quality on online data storage providers but regardless of how secure these systems are, they are still potentially only one password away from prying eyes.