The Basics of Backup Software
It happens all the time, even to the most computer savvy amongst us and this unfortunate occurrence will repeat itself for most computer users. I’m speaking of data loss or corruption. You have undoubtedly permanently deleted a vital file at some point or another in your computer career. What about making multiple changes to an important file and running out of undos, or the software you are using doesn’t even support undos! You may have had the experience of working on a vita file and your computer crashed resulting in all your changes being lost and irretrievable. All computer users are at the mercy of loosing data even if they do not like to admit that ugly fact.
So, if you are seeking information regarding various file backup solutions, you have come to the right place. There are multitudes of backup software for Windows available, all with varying features.
A standard file backup solution may include a simple interface where you specify which files you would like backed up and when. It is also possible to specify that only the files that have been changed in the time between backups be scheduled in the current backup. This is extremely advantageous if you are in a situation where you want to restore a file you deleted accidentally or you need for some reason to access a previous version of the file. These benefits are enough for some computer user but you should realize that the integrity of your data files can be jeopardized.
Backing up to various media including CD’s, DVD’s, external/internal hard drives and USB devices are supported by most Windows backup software. Some will even let you backup to a server on the Internet or over your local area network.
If you require a more advanced file backup solution then the standard file backup discussed above, you may want to look at software that supports disaster recovery and/or continuous data protection.
Disaster recover technology give you the ability to restore all of your computer data to a earlier time. It does not make you reinstall your Windows operating system or any of your other application, and it also doesn’t require any restoration of setting or files. They will all be included in the backup.
Continuous data protection is a technology that backs up your data files as they are changed. Each time a revision is made to your file as you are working on it that change will be saved or backed up. That way if you need to restore a file, you won’t be restoring an old copy that was created from the last scheduled backup, you will be restoring whichever revision you need, even one from 2 minutes ago or last week.
So, there you have it. A synopsis of the things to look out for when you are deciding on a backup type for your computer data. It is easy and quick to use one of these options and then be able to forget all about dreaded loss of data. The type of software you choose will be indicative of the importance of the data you are backing up.
