Jinaa ICT Blog

The consequences of not backing up data need no explanation. Just imagine this: You turn on your computer and nothing happens. The hard drive is gone, all the
data on it is gone, and there’s nothing you can do to get that data back. If that thought doesn’t make you want to put down this magazine and back up everything on your computer immediately, then nothing will.
Unfortunately, backing up data is a chore. In fact, according to a survey undertaken by PC Pitstop (www.pcpitstop.com), 26.5% of the 4,084 respondents never back up their data at all. Many backup programs are readily available, but they are packed with enough features to confuse anyone. Furthermore, selecting the wrong type of backup when using these types of programs can
actually do more harm than good, depending on how you want to store your data.
The articles in the following section will tell you everything you need to know about specific backup media, applications, and services and how best to use them; but before reading those, you need to understand the basics of backup.

Full Backups
When most people think of backups, they think of full backups, which
copy everything on the hard drive. The most thorough method of performing a full backup is called drive cloning, which copies everything, including Windows files that are needed if you want to restore your computer to working order after a complete hard drive failure. Less thorough full backups simply copy all user files on the system and leave Windows system files alone. Full backups that are not modified (such as those stored on recordable DVDs) are called archives, because the files within the backup never change. Full backups are very inefficient in terms of the time it takes to create the backup and also in terms of storage space required because so much data is copied. In general, you make a full backup once and then use the following more efficient backup methods to keep it updated day-to-day.

Incremental & Differential Backups
A major feature to look for when buying backup software is its ability to perform incremental and/or differential backups. These maintain backups of the latest versions of your files in two different ways. Incremental backups copy only the data that has been changed since a file was last backed up, meaning incremental backup jobs complete very quickly and don’t require a lot of storage space. The downside is that restoring files from an incremental backup can be a lengthy process because the backup software has to stitch multiple backups together to create the whole file. Differential backups create a completely new copy of a file that has been
changed. It takes longer to perform a differential backup because more data is copied relative to an incremental backup, but restoring data is much faster relative to an incremental backup because complete copies of backed up files are instantly available. Some software also lets you configure differential backups so that older copies of backed-up files are retained when the new copy is backed up. This is called versioning, as it lets you maintain an archive of different versions of the same file so you can easily revert to an earlier revision of a file whenever you wish.