It's impossible to find a person in our modern age who doesn't use digital information stored on a laptop, computer, phone, or online. Our daily lives are filled with work data, photos of loved ones, interesting articles, books, and much more.
Unfortunately, most of us have experienced the discomfort of losing important information due to a broken hard drive, stolen device, ransomware, or even a hacker attack.
There are many myths that are widely accepted as true, but the rules to avoid pitfalls when storing information are quite simple:
Myth #1 - It's enough to copy your information to another storage device – a hard drive, USB drive, or another device.
Fact:
When you copy information, there's no guarantee that it's correctly written to its destination. When you store the device on which you've written information, you can't be sure it's not damaged due to electromagnetic interference (even a nearby mobile phone can damage the data), extreme temperatures, power outages, and more. Manually copying information is time-consuming and generates a lot of occupied space. If a file is 100 units in size, and you want to keep 7 copies, you'll need 700 units of space for archives.
Myth #2 - I have two disks on my server, and the information from the first one is automatically transferred to the second one.
Fact:
Mirroring doesn't save you in cases where you might overwrite files with incorrect data or accidentally delete them. Mirroring solves the problem if the original disk is damaged, but it's not a backup solution.
Myth #3 - I made a copy of the data in another folder on my device.
Fact:
When you store your data and backup in the same location or on the same device, there's a risk of losing both in case of a disaster.
Myth #4 - I have cloud storage where I archive my files.
Fact:
This is great, but you should know that there may be delays in recovering your information because all the data needs to be downloaded from the internet to your device. Some major cloud storage providers offer very cheap data storage services but require several days to recover your data (e.g., Amazon S3 Glacier).
With so many opportunities for error, how can we protect our important information? It's not that difficult if you follow these principles:
Backups are performed regularly and automatically. Backups are stored in a different location from the data. Backups are encrypted, protecting them from unauthorized access. Backups are tested periodically to ensure a successful recovery.
ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency), the EU organization responsible for the security of information for all its members, recommends using the so-called 3-2-1 rule. What does this mean?
3 – Keep three copies of your information. One is the original, the second is a backup, and the third is a backup of the backup.
2 – Store these copies on two different types of media – for example, on a hard drive and in the cloud.
1 – Have at least one copy that is far from the location of the original – a remote company location, the cloud, or, for larger companies, storage in a safe.
As a partner of two major global companies – Veeam and Acronis – BGService always recommends to its clients to follow the above rule for backup usage.
Contact us for a consultation on your needs and a recommendation for the right backup solution.
