Inspired By SOS Online Backup White Paper
Article Inspired By SOS Online Backup White Paper
Online Backup Essential Feature #1
Online backup, aka cloud storage means different things to different people. (And, oh by the way, those terms are actually different even though they are often used interchangeably – learn more about that here)
To some, online backup software is an automated backup system with:
- What can be, unlimited backup media “size”
- Anywhere access to my data
- An ability to sync data between devices
And to others it might simply be:
- An offsite backup that may or may not complement an onsite backup media
Additionally, your backup media, whether tapes, disks, DVD’s or cloud servers, need to be encrypted in case that media falls into the wrong hands.
To home users, many think that unimportant with their music collection and we would probably agree. But with family photos? It’s just creepy to think of someone else having access to and perhaps modifying and then posting those pics online for their amusement.
And financial data? Hopefully that goes without saying.
Make sure your online backup service is encrypting your data, before it leaves your computer, with strong industry accepted methods. Whether you want to have a private key that only you know is for you to decide; only certain online backup services offer that option.
By the way, having a copy of your data offsite is essential to protect against fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, theft, earthquake, SINKHOLE (been in the news recently)…you get the idea, right?
Essential Online Backup Feature #1 is Securely Encrypted Offsite Storage of Your Data; encrypted BEFORE it ever leaves your device
Online Backup Essential Feature #2
For individual home computer users, an actual data backup and recovery disaster plan might sound a little too intense. But in practice, you still need it for the day when a hard drive crashes and you want to KNOW that you can get a copy of your data back.
For businesses, this is crucial. In today’s world, losing company data can mean going out of business, even a lawsuit.
So in addition to signing up for a quality online backup service like IDrive, SOS, Mozy or one of the others we review on Online Backup Spot, you need a verification and testing plan that you carry out at regular intervals; in a way, the same as you check the oil and tire pressure on your car (you do, right?) even though what you want to be able to do is just jump in your car, hit the key, and go!
Essential Online Backup Feature #2 is Verifiable Plan Of Ensuring Your Data Backups Happen and are Recoverable
Online Backup Essential Feature #3
Test your plan that you came up with for ensuring your data really is there and that you can retrieve it when and where you need to.
Preferably even test on a totally different computer so you can overcome the disaster of losing a computer altogether and still be able to restore your data.
Do the testing on a regular schedule.
Compare samples of files against the originals to make sure there has been no data corruption.
Essential Online Backup Feature #3 is Testing The Recovery Process and The Data It Retrieves