September 2009 -
Brief Overview of Online Backup

Written by Andrew Whitehead

Online backup is possibly the most convenient form of backing up files, leaving you with few excuses not to do it. Losing your files is something that is going to happen to you one day, not something that might happen, and if you do not backup your data it will be a disaster. Files can be lost in many ways, most of which are beyond your control. The most common reasons for data loss are:

1. 42% Mechanical Failure
2. 34% Human Error
3. 15% Software Failure
4. 6% Viruses
5. 3% Natural Disaster

How Online Backups Work

Instead of storing your backup files on magnetic or optical media, you send your data over the internet to another computer, and this other computer acts as a remote backup. When you lose a file, you connect to that remote computer to restore it.

In addition to the great advantage of 'disaster proofing' your business with a remote backup, online backup is also a very convenient way for businesses to store critical, high-value, information that they can then download from anywhere in the world. For people who travel, work from more than one location, or want to share files with colleagues, online backup is the ideal solution.

Varieties of Online Backup

Basically, there are two forms of online backup. In the first option, you download software provided by the online backup provider and install it on your PC. This done, you connect to the online backup provider's server, select the files you want to back up, and transfer them over the internet. When the day arrives when you find you have lost everything, you simply connect and restore all your files back onto your computer.

If there is a lot of files that could take a long time to backup, or you have lost your internet connection, some services will send you your backups on your choice of media.

Option two is to use a web-based backup service. You do this from your browser window, and you can access all your stored files from any computer assuming it has an internet connection. Generally, web based online backups cannot back up quite as much as the first option, but they are more user friendly and make file sharing easier.

Advantages of Online Backup

It can cost you less to set up and run than other options.

There is no hardware to buy, maintain, or repair and no consumable media to manage.

Online backups can be made completely automatic, releasing time for more productive tasks.

Simple to manage, all that is required is to turn it on.

No need to arrange for storage of media, either onsite or offsite.

No worries about media degrading or becoming obsolete.

Some online data backup programs can offer features unavailable in media based backups, such as remote data access and synching.

All your backup files are available online, from anywhere in the world, at any time.

All your backup files are encrypted by your computer before sending, and stored in that format ensuring a very high level of security.

Your backup files can be accessed from anywhere in the world.

Brief Overview of Online Backup by Andrew Whitehead
Copyright © 2009 by free-backup.info
Reproduction or syndication permitted only under article use guidelines

Offsite Backup Exposes Potential Threats of Tape Backup

Author: Lee Morrell


Tape backup is notorious for its inadequacy. It is unreliable, as its properties are dependable on human errors and technologically failures. Tapes are prone to mechanical, thermal and other kind of physical intervention, which can reduce their quality. The data recovery from tapes is only 60% true, as most information is lost due to the technical disadvantages. Tape backups can have slower recovery time than any other off-site backup driver. The potential threats that tapes can bring to the extraction of data is stronger than in any types of information containers. So, the next logical question to be posed here is why should rational businessmen or data admins depend on the inadequate tape systems? Offsite backup is much more reliable, faster and efficient, in comparison to the slow and old-fashioned tape backup.

Tapes have a technical annual failure in score of 1 to 12 percent. Due to this technical drawback, you should provide more tapes for containing information, as you can never be sure if they would work or would crack down. The multiple tapes that you will need for storing all the information will gradually ruin your budget, that's why tape backup is often more expensive than offside backup, but it resumes its inadequate and slow working features nevertheless. The number of tapes that fail from either technical or administrative mistakes is estimated around 60 %. Just imagine the total budget for restoring the lost information: it will be enough to make your bankrupt!

But even more astonishingly, tape backups are still used today in many organizations, which are storing all their valuable files on mere tapes. The span that tapes are reliable is about a year: they tend to gradually decay and lose the stored information. Literally every user has experienced a tape deterioration when storing some files. Many end users are seriously disappointed when this happens to them , and start searching for other ways to protect their data. Some companies acquire daily backup regime, which is time and money consuming. Although it serves the requirements put by tape backups, it is highly stressing and can impede the daily regime of the enterprise. Tape backups are likely to have drawbacks, the same as disk . Using both methods is probably the best way to have your data protected.

Recovery procedures in the organizations cost a lot of time and money. You should think of all the things that can cause a disaster, and try to prevent them. You should either hire a security specialist, or make sure your network is protected, or even do both. A disaster recovery planning of a company can be a nerve racking experience for the new employees. The larger you organization is, the more data are likely to vanish into thin air (or network gaps). That's' why you should protect the system mainly from hackers , as well as from your own mistakes in file storage.

Offsite backup helps you eliminate the threats posed by ordinary tape backup. You eliminate manual intervention, thus reducing any possible human mistakes that can occur. You make everything works in an automatic and simple way, thus saving a lot of precious time for dealing with other tasks. By automating the entire process, you save installation failures, technical breaks, or property loss. Tape needs physical handling, which surely means MISTAKES: people often make mistakes when dealing with important data. By computizing the whole storing, you can easily reach the expected results, rather than shout at your managers and employers for making something wrong. This whole operation reduces the risks of malfunction up to 20 %: more than a double off the risky percent in tape backup.

Maybe the one and only advantage that tape backup has over digital stores, is that it is removable: it can be moved everywhere, and read everywhere, if you have the proper technology. This is a plus, though, it may soon become a minus: the mobility of the tape backups can also lead to someone taking over your information files. Perhaps it is better if you make an offsite backup.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/data-recovery-articles/offsite-backup-exposes-potential-threats-of-tape-backup-33495.html

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For further information how offsite backup can help your company, please visit

www.perfectbackup.co.uk