Backing up data can be done on different media such as flash disks, portable hard drives and in the event of an office; there could be network drives. PHOTO/courtesy
Backing up information is often ignored. Backup refers to making other copies of your data in the event that the original data is lost or destroyed.
The backing up data process is crucial to a disaster recovery plan. Backing up data involves changing methods and storage technology used in the process.
The evolution of data storage has seen a trend from tapes to hard drives and now cloud storage.
If you are still debating on whether it is worth investing in any data recovery or storage device, better think twice before you lose all important memories and information.
When you get the data storage device whether from a smartphone or laptop or PC, you have to decide and manage ways on how to transfer your data.
When 22-year-old Edith Nakiragga’s phone was corrupted, she rushed to buy a new one hoping to retrieve her data.
“I have never recovered those images from my old phone. Those are just memories without evidence,” she says.
Mr Earnest Bukenya, computer and software engineer dealing in repair and maintenance, says backing up information is one way of duplicating data. It can be done on different media such as flash disks, portable hard drives and in the event of an office; there could be network drives.
“This could be done on the cloud where we back up data on a procured storage space on a server located on a different location. This makes it easy since this data can be accessed anywhere,” Mr Bukenya says.
There are a number of alternative ways to back up data to avoid losing your data.
Mr Bukenya cites the portable media drives which are connected to the computer or server and data is transferred onto them.
“These could be kept away or stored on a different location and in an event of data loss or stolen device; one could get them and retrieve the data,” he says.
In addition, for an office, there are usually network drives for users where there is a secure space on the company server where a particular user could store their documents and access them in case of computer failure or stolen computer or mobile device failure.
The data can be stored using cloud storage which is applicable to most mobile devices.
“A user could pay for a particular size of space and he or she is able to upload data on this space and in case of data loss on the local storage; it (data) can then be accessed on a different device with a particular set of credentials,”Mr Bukenya explains.
For example, this is how you save your contacts onto your Gmail account and in case you want to retrieve your contacts, you can access them.
He says that the amount of time taken to back up data is determined by a number of factors such as the bigger the amount of data; the more the time and the less the data the quicker it will take to back up the Data.
The medium of transfer also matters. If the data is being transferred to a local Drive, this will take less time than data being upload onto the cloud which will also depend on the internet speed.
Types
Mr Lucas Tusiime, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation IT officer and director of British Standard Technologies, says there are different types of data backups. Full back up involves backing up everything on a drive PC or any other media like tape DVD floppy among others. This type of backup takes lots of space.
Then there is incremental backup. Here, having backed up everything previously, this time you copy currently added files and leave the rest. This doesn’t take lots of space since you are only backing up the desired files only.
In addition, there is a mirror backup. With this, you simply get the same copy of data to another storage through using systems such as a raid system.
Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) is a data storage virtualisation technology that combines multiple physical disk drive components into one or more logical units for the purposes of data redundancy or performance improvement or both.
Mr Tusiime says backing up data can be done in a number of ways such as on site or local backup. This occurs when the backup server is in the same premises or location, office or home with those backing up. It can be done through Cloud Backup where you buy space with Google and keep your file in space on google drive.
Costs
With the Covid-19 crisis where people are working and staying home, Mr Tusiime says it costs between Shs2.5m and Shs3m for a local backup and full backup when using a computer and hard disc. A Cloud backup costs between Shs150,000 and Shs1m.
For an office back up, it is recommended that they use both local and cloud . The office backup up server costs between Shs4,5m and Shs15m.
Whereas an external drive costs Shs300,000 for 1TB, a flash costs Shs55,000 for 16GB.
However, he notes that data can be retrieved based on how it has been crushed. “It is normally good if you lose your data not to copy anything on before a recovery is done. The chances of recording data depends on how the hard disk has been crushed but recoveries are normally done,” Mr Tusiime explains.
Back up
Alternatives
The small, cheap and convenient, USB sticks are portable and easy to store safely. You can also easily transfer data to other sources. The external hard drive lives outside your computer; meaning it can be plugged into other sources with a lot of storage space for large files.
A time machine backs up to the external hard drives automatically. This means your phone should be up-to-date,’’
Ms Flavia Mawemuko, an Information Technology enthusiast says.
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