The data stored on your hard drive is the most critical part of your computer, which cannot be easily replaced. It may be an unwanted expense to repair and replace defective memory, monitor, or a processor, but there is no easy way to replace years of your critical data!
In addition to the possibility of a simple (mechanical) hard drive failure, the threat of Internet borne worms and viruses has become an increasing risk to data loss or corruption requiring disaster recovery. Although you may not be able to provide absolute protection to your hard drive, there are various ways that you can ensure that the data on your hard drive is backed up archived.
Computer Systems Support & Design assists small business in Fairfield County, CT with Data Backup and Disaster recovery solutions. Read more about Reliable Always “On” Backup and Disaster Recovery that keeps your business running.
But read on about three simple methods of backing up your data:
Using CD and DVD Writers:
CD and DVD burners are an ‘essential’ part of just about every computer. These devices can typically be found installed in a computer case, but external devices supporting USB 2.0 or Firewire interface are available for greater flexibility, mobility and ease of installation.
The main limitation of using a CD writer for data backups is that the discs are generally limited to a capacity of 700MB per disc. Not nearly enough for a full backup, but adequate for archiving key files.
DVD media offers the user far more storage capacity than a CD, and most modern DVD burners can burn CDs as wells as DVD’s. The recent availability of dual layer DVD burners represents a large boost in the capacity of writable DVD’s, taking the previous limit of 4.7GB per disc and nearly doubling it to 8.5GB.
External USB Hard Drives:
External hard drives are typically the same type of drive you might find inside your system, but housed in a smaller, external enclosure of its own. The enclosure will feature at least one data interface (such as Firewire or USB), and the capacity is only limited by the size of hard drives presently available and the user’s budget.
Up to 4TB are available today providing room for many, many pictures, videos and files.
The capacity of external hard drives makes them ideal for backing up large volumes of data, and many of these devices simplify the process by including software (or hardware) features to automate the backup.
Additional Hard Drives inside the computer (and RAID):
By adding an additional hard drive to your system, you can protect yourself from data loss by copying your data from your primary drive to your secondary drive. The installation of a second hard drive is not difficult, but does require a basic understanding of the inner working of a computer.
To take the installation of a second hard drive to another level of security and reliability, the hard drives may be installed in a RAID array. RAID stands for a Redundant Array of Independent Disks, and can be configured in several manners. A RAID 1 array requires two hard drives of equal size to be installed on a RAID controller, which will then mirror one drive to the other in real time. Many motherboard’s now come with RAID controllers onboard. With a RAID 1 array in place, if one hard drive should ever fail, the system won’t miss a best by continuing to run on the remaining good drive, and alert the user that one drive may need to be replaced.