The previous article discussed the principles and limitations of redundant RAID arrays used to build a fault-tolerant system. With RAID arrays not being a guarantee of data integrity, what is? Common belief is that regular backups are a perfect solution. Indeed, a carefully thought of and properly implemented backup policy will get you close to perfection – but not quite the absolute safety touted by backup apologists. This article discusses the benefits and limitations of regular backups in achieving the ultimate safety and accessibility of your data.
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Posts tagged backup
Data Backups: Also Not a Perfect Panacea
Redundant RAID Arrays: Not a Perfect Panacea
Designing and implementing the optimum storage system is an often underestimated challenge even in large organizations storing and accessing humongous amounts of information. More often than not, companies implement a single RAID array, considering its redundancy a guarantee of data preservation. More often than not, this is not the case.
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Top 10 Data Recovery Mistakes (4-6)
This article continues series of common mistakes done by the companies when planning the prevention and recovery of data loss.
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Top 10 Data Recovery Mistakes (1-3)
In this article, we’re going to speak about the most common mistakes done by computer users and organizations when planning the prevention and recovery of data loss situations. Those are real (and very common) situations emailed to our customer support by clients seeking assistance.
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Preventing Data Loss: SMART Monitoring Your Disks
It’s always easier to prevent a data loss instead of recovering information from an already failed disk. Today’s storage media, including all magnetic and SSD disks, gives plenty of early warnings to hint you about the need of an urgent backup and an upcoming replacement.
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Making and Keeping Your Backups
No matter how reputable the manufacturer of your CD and DVD-R media is, how well the recordable CD/DVD media is made and how properly you store it, one day it will eventually fail. Sooner or later. If you have valuable information to back up, do not rely solely on your burned CD/DVD media. At very least, use different brands and make backups often – then you’ll be increasing your chances of reading back information from at least one of the several copies. Have multiple backups ready; if possible, make a second backup on another hard drive, network location, cloud or webmail service. READ MORE »
Shelf Life of Recordable CD & DVD Media
The shelf life of recordable CDs and DVDs burned at home using a DVD burner is limited. Do not confuse recordable media with commercially manufactured (pressed) CDs and DVDs such as software, music or movies you can buy in stores. There is a big difference. If properly stored, pressed DVDs can last pretty much forever. Not so for DVDs that you burned at home. Most recordable media uses organic dye to actually keep bits of recorded information. The organic stuff will be deteriorating with time, making reading these discs increasingly more difficult. Media deterioration occurs with time, slowly increasing the chance you won’t be able to read data from CDs and DVDs that you burned after a few years.
Some manufacturers claim their media is good for 10, 30, 50, or even 300 years. “Archival quality” is a frequently used (and heavily misused) term. No one lives for 300 years, and the technology has not been around for the last half-century, so verifying these claims is pretty much impossible. There are, however, known and well-documented cases of recordable media failing because of premature deterioration of the organic layer.
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Recovering CD and DVD Backups
What could be more frustrating than reaching for a CD/DVD backup and discovering you can’t read the most important files? Don’t worry just yet; there are tools that can do more than Windows to read your files back. Read this article to learn more about the issue of optical backups, their fate and recovery. READ MORE »