Boredworkers.com

Backups. It is something you should really consider if you have important data. As a software developer, I can tell you that it is essential to backup data on a daily basis. I can tell you countless horror stories arising from not keeping a backup policy. However, inspite of all that ingrained knowledge, I still forget to copy out my important stuff.

A programmer who doesn’t backup is nothing more than a typist.
- A very smart man -

I sort of learned the hard way of what happens if you don’t backup your data often enough when Boredworkers.com’s server hard disk crashed in April last year (April Fool’s day no less). The last good copy of the server I had was about 2 months back. That meant 2 months of data and work lost in a flash. While it wasn’t particularly important stuff, it was a painful experience nonetheless.

Now imagine if it were something more than a personal blog. Imagine if it were something sentimental or precious. I don’t know, perhaps the sole softcopy photo of your favourite dog which died when you were a kid. Imagine the heartache.

Wikipedia defines Backup as the process of copying of data so that these additional copies may be restored after a data loss event. However, the question remains, copying it to where? Most of us believe that saving a copy in removable media, such as CDs, tapes, or portable drive, would be sufficient. But is it really?

Where would one keep said removable storage? On the shelve next to the workstation that contains the original copy? In the next room? What if the building burned down? There goes the backup. Don’t think it will happen to you? Well, worse things have happened.

Or maybe you’re like WL who once kept copies of her important work in a thumbdrive (nowadays, it’s kept on a portable harddrive). WL had her notebook stolen from her car once. Did the thumbdrive backup help her in disaster recovery? Heck no. She kept the thumbdrive in a pocket of the laptop carrying case. Needless to say, it was stolen as well.

While there isn’t a best practice for backups, it is usually advisable to keep copies of important data in a location remote to the original source. It is also wise to keep multiple copies. While most data centres have a vaulting system in place, that isn’t quite as feasible a solution for home personal users.

In comes online backup and storage. With broadband connections and increasing internet bandwidth, this becomes a reliable and viable solution. Store your important data online at a remote location thousands of miles away from you. Let the data centre folks worry about making backups of your backups. Put your mind at ease.

IBackup is one such service provider. For as low as USD9.95, you can rent 5GB of storage space to store your all important data. While there are many other free options (such as free disk space and file sharing directories), none of the free services provide the scalability of IBackup. At best, you’ll probably get 50MB or 100MB of free storage online.

For a price (rather pricey though), you can get up 300GB of backup storage space. That’s sufficient for backing up entire servers for SMEs. Check out IBackup’s subscription packages for more details.

For the set fee, IBackup provides not only the storage space, but also tools to easily backup, synchronise, and even map the online storage as a local drive for various operating systems.

If you’ve ever scratched your head trying to figure out a good way of backing up your data, then this is right up your alley. Pay IBackup a visit and check them out. Who knows, they might solve alot of your headaches.

This post was brought to you by IBackup