How To Tell Which Backup Method Is The Best
Finding the best backup solutions for you and your business will depend on many factors.
These factors include but are not
limited to: cost, number of licenses, remote access, portability,
versioning, compression capabilities, and availability.
To the consumer, price plays an important role as the
consumer knows how much he/she can afford when approaching the best
backup solution. A word of warning, however, lower cost does not mean
lower
quality and in many cases the best backup solution may be reasonably
priced compared to the market leader. This is where the other factors come in that will
influence the buyers decision for the best backup solution. At the
end, it is important for the buyer to remember the requirements
needed to make their backup solutions their best backup solution.
CD and DVD Backups
Burning CDs and DVDs is the cheapest option in terms of tools and material; however, when labor costs are factored on, CD and DVD backups are among the most expensive options. Disks need to be labeled, filed, and stored in climate controlled environment.
Because optical media cannot provide the capacity needed for most backups today, disk spanning is used. Disk spanning, however, increases labor and error probabilities because several media need to be burned and stored.
External Hard Drive Backups
External hard drive backups are probably the most popular choice of backup media because they are the fastest and lowest cost backup solution available today. Hard drives are sensitive to magnetic fields, mechanic shock, the heat, the cold, static discharge, power surges, and moisture; hence, this type of media also requires special handling. On the other hand, external hard drives provide very large capacities for backup above 2TB via USB and eSATA. The backup data write rates are also phenomenal (up to 150 MB/sec) when compared to tape or optical media backup technologies.
Probably the best reason to invest in an external USB drive backup is the overall low cost and high mobility it permits. On the downside, the initial investment is higher than for CD and DVD backups. In addition, the life expectancy of data stored on hard drives is similar to that of CDs and DVDs: 1 to 3 years, after which the data should be rewritten to refresh the magnetic fields on the disk's cyclinders.
Network Backups
Network backups are popular in office settings to move data between servers and replicate content. The data throughput is usually less than with external hard drives unless a dedicated gigabit network or similar high-speed link is provided to the backup infrastructure. Network backups may be unreliable when network links break and not all tools are able to recover from network failures.
In addition, because computers on the network are usually permanently connected to the network, they are prone to suffer from the same risks at the same time. Examples: power surges, virus attacks, flooding, fire, etc. Optical media and external hard drives that are disconnected after backup may offer an extra layer of protection that in-house network backups cannot offer. However, remote backups over the Internet may be a feasible solution for those who need geographically diversified backup stores in case disaster strikes. Obviously the latter scenarios is much more costly and most likely cannot offer the same data throughput as a local backup device.
Tape Backups
Once tape backups were the only feasible way to back up data. Today they are almost obsolete; however, if data longevity is important for your organization you need to consider tapes.
If stored correctly magnetic tapes can last a hundred years and more. On the other hand, the costs involved in creating and maintaining tape backups are the number one thing to consider.
The data throughput for sequential writing may be acceptable; yet, tapes cannot offer the random access speeds that hard drives and optical drives offer. If random access to backed up data is important, tapes are not an option. Also, tapes come in limited capacities, usually far smaller than today's hard drive capacities. It may be necessary, hence, to span a backup over many tapes, which complicates the handling of tape backups a lot.
Conclusion
To decide which technology is best for your organization you need to consider the pros and cons of each technology. One major consideration is the expected life span of the information you wish to back up.