Part 3: Backup Strategies
There are various ways of transferring data to your backup medium(s). Each operation has its pros and cons. Let’s explore them and by the end, you should be able to conclude which strategy is best for you.
Basic Copy Operation (drag-and-drop in the OS file manager)
Pros
• Good for small backups, which don’t need to be copied regularly.
• Everything that is copied should be bit-to-bit as the original
Cons
• Restoring to a particular point in time could be time consuming and also impossible if the file is constantly overwritten.A Full Backup
Pros
• The earlier backup can be restored and minimal data is lost.
• Files can easily be found and restored to a particular point in time.
Cons
• If data is to be saved regularly, the storage space requirements will add up to be huge compared to the other options.
An Incremental Backup Strategy
Pros
• An incremental backup strategy is the most space efficient strategy because it only copies the changed files since the full backup.
Cons
• If one of the incremental backups is damaged, the data from the later backups are useless.
• To find one particular file, you either need a good backup management tool or work will be difficult and there is risk of errors occurring.
• To restore a complete data set, the latest full backup and all the incremental backups are required, making it the most time consuming backup option.
A Differential Backup Strategy
Pros
• If a differential backup is damaged, you can restore the previous backup and lose minimal data.
• For the recovery, you need only two backup data sets: the differential backup from the desired date and the latest full backup.
Cons
• Requires less storage space than a full backup operation but more than an incremental operation.
Creating Multiple Backup Sets
Pros
• If a backup set goes bad, simply use the other set, making this option the most reliable.
• Restoring data will depend on the backup operation used.
Cons
• Requires the most storage space out of all the backup strategies.
Encrypting the Backup Data
Pros
• Encrypting the data will not affect storage space, but will defiantly make it more secure.
• Encrypting the backup will have no effect on redundancy.
Cons
• Restoring data from a certain point of time can be harder if proper software is not used because the date could be encrypted.
Reading from the above option, you should be able to work out which backup operation is best for you. For example, if you’re running a small business that deals with a small amount of document data, a full backup operation would be recommended due to the nature of the small file sizes. We’ll continue our series with part 4 being which software to use. Stay tuned!
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