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Data Loss is a Frightening Reality for Computer Users

For anyone who has ever irrevocably lost an important file because of loss or destruction of their computer, or even user error, the importance of good backups cannot be stressed enough.

As technology improves, it becomes harder and harder to make successful backups of our valuable personal data. Most personal collections of documents and digital media are too large to fit on one CD, or even a handful of DVDs. Hard drives are relatively inexpensive and make great high-speed backup devices, but they don’t solve the problem of off-site backups.

Ideally, you want a copy of your data “off-site” so that you will still have it even if disaster strikes your home or office.

Mozy, owned by data storage giant EMC, offers their MozyHome product for just this purpose: to bring off-site backup to everyone who needs it. MozyHome is available for Windows and Mac, but this review will focus on MozyHome for Mac, which recently came out of beta with a 1.0 release.

MozyHome for Mac lists only one system requirement, Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, which translates to OS X Tiger or Leopard. In addition to this requirement, you also need a high-speed Internet connection.

MozyHome works on a simple principle: you install the application and tell it what you would like backed up. MozyHome then works in the background to upload your files to a safe off-site location at Mozy HQ. The Mozy client is small, does not use many system resources, and works silently in the background. After several weeks of constant use, the Mozy software did not cause any errors or system failures.

MozyHome maintains the security of your files: it uses standard 128-bit SSL encryption when uploading files to the Mozy servers, and it stores these files in strong 448-bit containers so that only the owner can decipher them. These are important considerations, especially since the alternative is to implicitly trust Mozy not to nose around in your data while they’ve got it stored for you.

Mozy offers an introductory program that grants 2 GB of off-site storage for your backups for free. This is a good way to check out the service, but if your backup requirements are that low you may be better off burning your data to DVD and taking it to the office or a safe deposit box. For $4.95 a month, MozyHome offers users unlimited storage, which could be ideal for people with a lot of data to store, particularly those ever-growing collections of digital family photos.

Therein lies the main problem with the Mozy concept: consumer broadband Internet connections are asynchronous, which means they are very fast on the download but can be slow on the upload. You might load a web page or download a file with lightning speed, but if you attach that same file to an email to send out and it takes forever to send. While Mozy offers unlimited storage, it is not as useful as it sounds, since with slow upload speeds it can take weeks or months to complete a single backup of a personal data collection large enough to make Mozy sound attractive in the first place. Mozy claims typical users manage 2-4 GB of data backed up per day. A user with as little as 120GB of personal data (not hard to imagine given enough music or photo files) would need a full month to perform a successful backup.

Luckily, once an initial backup is made, Mozy only needs to upload files that change, which will be a smoother and less bandwidth-intensive operations, with occasional spikes, e.g., importing the photos from the latest birthday party.

MozyHome is for personal use only, and neither the free 2GB account nor the $4.95/month unlimited account is allowed by Mozy’s terms of service to be used for business data (not even small home-based business). For businesses, Mozy offers MozyPro, a more expensive product with features geared toward business users.

Recovering your data from Mozy is a fairly straightforward affair. Using either the Mozy software or the Mozy website, a user can pick the files or folders they wish to restore can can either download them or ask for DVDs to be sent (for a fee). Preparing a download-based data restore can take a while, and downloading it can take even longer, though not as long as the upload took. A backup that took a month to upload could take a few days to download, depending on the speed of the Internet, but if you must turn to Mozy to restore your data, chances are something horrible has happened, and waiting a few days to get your files back is a better option than never seeing them again.

MozyHome can provide some peace of mind in the knowledge that your data is locked away somewhere safe, out of reach of local disasters. It can be time-consuming and frustrating to achieve an initial backup of a large chunk of data. At $60/year, MozyHome is an affordable service for as long as you trust EMC to continue operating the service. A potential Mozy user should start first with a free 2GB account and get a feel for backing up and restoring small amounts of data before committing to an unlimited plan.

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Backing Up Your Data

Data Backups Are Essential

Backing up data is a best practice routine that all companies and individuals should undertake. While it doesn’t literally prevent data loss it can vastly minimize or even eradicate the negative effects of a data loss incident. Data loss can occur for many different reasons and can range from a mild loss of a single file to complete hard drive failure. If you have recently backed up important data and files then you can be certain that in the event of any potential data loss, no matter how potentially catastrophic, you will always have a recent file and data list to fall back on.

Increased Computer Use Means Increased Data

The use of computers has become much more widespread. Rather than being a work based phenomenon the majority of households have at least one computer and at least one regular computer user. As well as surfing the Internet the computer can be used to work from home, store personal information, transfer files from devices to a permanent storage device, and more. Digital photography and MP3 players, for instance, regularly require the use of a computer to store the relevant files. This means that even personal computer users stand to lose money and/or personal files and memories if anything untoward does occur.

Minimizing The Negative Impacts Of Data Loss

Preventing hard drive failure and other types of data loss is not entirely possible. An aging hard drive, or one that has become full of files and programs will inevitably suffer from a greater number of corrupt files, accidental deletion of essential software components, and conflicts between different files and different applications. All of these carry the potential to cause data loss. Another area, and one that regular Internet surfers should be more than aware of, is the infection of your system with spyware or other types of malicious software.

Recovering After Parasite Infection

Spyware and virus infections have also become increasingly common. This is purely because hackers and parasite authors have recognized that more people use their computer to store personal information and surf the Internet. By creating software that can be covertly transmitted via the Internet and can transmit data from one computer to another in the same way, hackers can gain access to an entire system or have certain files and cookies of information forwarded back to them. Digital theft is also a major cause of system errors and, subsequently, the loss of data.

Regular Backups For Regular Computer Users

How often you should back up your data depends, in part, on how often you use your computer and what exactly you store on there. It is highly unlikely that any regular user does not store some vital information that needs to be secured rather than lost. Very regular users should certainly consider a partial backup to CD or DVD on a daily basis. Version archiving means that once a disk reaches a certain age it can be written over again because there is no need to keep the older version of that disk.

Remote And Local Backups

As well as daily local backups it is strongly recommended that your perform some sort of remote backup. For individual users this might be the saving to disk and storage within another premise. For business users and for individual users, though, a weekly online backup is certainly a beneficial move. There are free services and paid services available offering many different features including full automation, unlimited storage space, and more.

Data Backup Conclusion

Backing up data is often critical to the survival of businesses. If something were to happen to a central server or to a computer that included vital customer account information or employee information then it can be incredibly difficult to recover from these types of incident if you do not have some form of backup available. Regular users should consider daily backups to a local source and at least weekly backups to a remote source of storage. This should prevent any major loss of mission critical data.

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Data Loss, Backup, Security, And Recovery

What Is Data Loss?

Data loss is a big issue to businesses and individuals alike, especially those that have suffered data loss incidents. It costs American businesses alone billions of dollars every single year and is one of the biggest causes of a business going bankrupt. To an individual it can mean the loss of personal information and memories including financial information, personal letters, and family photographs. To businesses it can mean the loss of vital financial information, contact details, and ongoing work. Regardless of whether data loss happens to an individual or to a group it can be truly devastating and difficult to recover from.

Causes Of Data Loss

Data loss is typically caused by damage or erosion of physical hardware, software, or files. Hard drives may be more robust than ever before but they still contain fragile components that are potentially very easily damaged. Similarly, software and personal files can be accidentally deleted or they can become damaged or corrupt over time or through the introduction of spyware or viruses to a vulnerable system.

Prevention Or Cure?

However data loss occurs the end result is usually very damaging. Data loss can, to a large extent, be prevented through the regular creation of backups. While backing up data is not without its flaws and its possible problems it is preferable to the complete loss of information. In those cases where data loss occurs after the most recent backup it is also possible to perform data recovery in order to recover the majority or even the whole of your lost data.

Backing Up Data

Backing up data is a practice that we should become accustomed to because it can help to minimize the impact of data loss. By regularly saving work and files to a source other than your main hard drive it is possible to prepare for almost any instance of data loss. Regularly saving important files to a CD, DVD, or flash drive is both inexpensive and very simple. It’s certainly a practice that can be undertaken by any computer user with any level of expertise.

Remote Backup Facilities

However, backing up data to a local source such as a CD that is kept on site is not an ideal long term solution. Another major cause of data loss is fire or natural disaster. If your computer is subject to fire, for example, and you keep your DVD backup on the same desk or even in the same building as your computer then you are likely to lose your backup as well. For this reason it is advised that users routinely make a backup that is kept off site or at a remote location. Online services exist in order to facilitate the simple and quick creation of a remote backup. Alternatively, data storage companies will store tape or other media backups at their own secure location.

Ensuring That Stored Data Is Secure

Whenever we create a backup of data for remote storage one of the most important factors is how secure that data is. Insecure data can be lost or stolen and fall into the wrong hands. It can be used, for example, to gain credit cards or bank accounts in your name or it can even be used for the purpose of identity theft. When using a remote backup it is vital that this service or location be secure.

Ensuring The Security Of Your Data

Most online backup services offer a secure server as the location for your data. Do as much research as possible into the server itself and where the server is located. No matter how secure the server is, in terms of remote access, if it is stored in an insecure environment it will be easy for unauthorized parties to gain access to the information it holds. When using a remote storage facility to store backup data it is also important to ensure that the location is as secure as possible to prevent the loss or theft of data.

Data Recovery Introduction

If the worst does happen and you lose some or all of your data then you will undoubtedly want to recover this data as quickly and painlessly as possible. Many people are surprised to learn that most instances of data loss can be reversed. Physically damaged hard drives can usually be retrieved and the necessary files removed from the source. Similarly, when files are completely deleted (even from the recycle bin on your computer) they can ordinarily be recovered and retrieved back to your computer for further use.

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More Affordable And Accessible Than Ever Before

Data recovery has long been a practice reserved for highly experienced and specialist data recovery experts using expensive software that is difficult to obtain. Fortunately, that is not necessarily the case any longer. Software exists that is not only affordable but incredibly simple to use with many applications using a wizard type interface that Microsoft users will be more than accustomed to. These applications are available online for considerably less than you would pay a data recovery expert and they can be used over and over again.

Data Loss, Backup, And Recovery Summary

Data loss can be a real problem for individuals and for businesses alike. While backing up data is an essential practice it is often overlooked. All users are recommended to perform a CD or DVD backup of important data on a regular basis and users that keep important data on their machine are also recommended to perform a regular remote backup of data in case of fire or other disasters that would make the local storage of a disc backup impotent.

Data recovery is the final tool in the fight against data loss. Affordable and intuitive applications can be downloaded over the Internet and used to restore the vast majority of data that has been lost through whatever cause. It is unusual for data loss to be completely irreversible unless files were securely deleted using software that performs a number of overwrite passes.

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Data Recovery: Disaster Recovery Plan

A disaster recovery plan is exactly that – a plan that determines the actions, resources, data, and personnel required in the event that a business undergoes temporary downtime. While specific disasters may require very specific actions there are certain tasks that will generally be required in these circumstances. As well as ensuring that you have premises to use during the interim period and that staff and other human resources can be informed and deployed as required, another important aspect is the recovery of any mission critical data. Data loss can pose a massive impact on any business especially during times when resources will be stretched to the maximum.

Protecting Mission Critical Data

As part of any disaster recovery plan it is important to ensure that all mission critical and project critical data is stored properly and can be quickly accessed in the worst case scenario. While a lot of companies do create backups some still make the fatal mistake of storing these backups on the main premises. This means that in the event that a building or location becomes inaccessible or damaged the chances are that the data backup can also become damaged or lost. Keeping a remote backup of data and information is not just a desirable plan but an essential one in case of disaster.

Remote Backup Services

Online backup facilities are available that enable companies to store large amounts of data and establish routine, regular copies of that data. Some services provide a small application that can be installed on a central computer or on individual computers. This application can be scheduled to perform a regular backup of any new or altered file versions on the resident computer or system. This is a superb way of ensuring that your remote backup is kept up to date with the very latest changes and additions. In the case of an emergency this can mean the difference between losing large amounts of data and being able to continue working and recovering from any disaster.

Using Data Recovery Software To Retrieve Lost Data

Another invaluable resource to consider in any disaster recovery plan is data recovery software. This software can be used to recover single files or entire partitions and hard drives. Files that you otherwise believed to have gone missing can be fully recovered and saved to another location on your computer including an external storage device such as a flash drive or to another hard drive for quick and easy use. If you can gain access to the hard drive, but believe it’s failing then it is also possible to use drive burning software. This software will completely clone a failing hard drive to a brand new, undamaged one.

Preparing For The Unplanned

Unfortunately, disasters do happen and while it may not seem possible to prepare for every eventuality there are steps that can be taken to protect ensure the integrity of your mission critical data. Regular backups are vital, as is ensuring that you also perform regular remote backups to a location other than your main premises. By doing this you can ensure to an extent that your business is able to retain a degree of continuity even after the worst disaster.

Data Integrity And Disaster Recovery Planning

Disaster planning is a complex business and requires that you can continue your business with as much normality as possible. Ensuring you have premises available and staff are able to reach these premises is, of course, essential. However, if employees arrive at emergency premises they also need to be able to work effectively on existing clients and projects. By keeping a copy of your data safe it is possible to ensure that this is possible. Backing up data is one step but you should also consider purchasing good data recovery software to retrieve any last minute data that had not yet been backed up.

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