Backing up and archiving data

Data [data: information without context, eg a list of students with numbers beside their names is data, when it's made clear that those numbers represent their placing in a 100 metre race, the data becomes information ] needs to be backed up for many reasons:

• a user may delete an important file
• hard diskshard disk: a device used to store vast amounts of data, the data is stored on a disk can fail
• a virusvirus: ultramicroscopic non-cellular organism that replicates itself inside the cells of living hosts can wipe out data
• a fire may destroy the building where the data was being stored (businesses will often store their backups [backup: to copy data onto a separate storage device in case the original device should fail, be damaged or the data stored on it get corrupted ] off-site)

If the data wasn’t backed up then the consequences could be disastrous depending on what data was lost. If a business lost details of all the payments it had yet to receive the business could go bankrupt as they wouldn’t know what was owed to them or by who.

Businesses typically use magnetic tape to backup important data. Your average home user is unlikely to backup their data but those who do will most likely use an external hard disk.

Frequency of backups

Some data is more valuable than other data and some data is changed more frequently than other data. These are the kind of issues that must be taken into account when deciding how often to backup data.

The value of the data should determine how frequently it is backed up.

If the data doesn’t change often then it doesn’t need to be backed up as often, maybe just after each change. If the data changes frequently then it should be backed up frequently (maybe every evening).

Archiving

Some data may not be being used very often but it may still be useful or needed in the future. In this case data can be archived. Archived data is copied to a suitable storage medium (perhaps DVDsDigital Versatile Disc (DVD): used to store data, eg a movie or magnetic tape) then it is stored safely and securely. The original data is then deleted from the computer system. This is done to free up storage space for new data.