The legend of international maybe
Recognized backup master is a lizard. Discarding its tail under force majeure circumstances, it soon grows a new one. This is evolutionarily laid down by nature and does not require special efforts from the amphibian. Separate phenomena of the restoration of organs or cells are also found in other animals, including homo sapiens. However, today the situation has changed and the person, unlike the lizard, has another significant value - information, namely the data that he carefully collected, accumulated, and ... But what happens to them further depends on how homo corresponds to the title sapiens. As you may have guessed, not everyone matches. It’s not for nothing that World Backup Day was invented, which is celebrated just today. Results of the contest inside!
And certainly not for nothing that International Backup Day is celebrated on the eve of April 1, when everyone can be fooled. By the way, it was at the beginning of April that a surge of attacks and cybercrimes took place - the dark forces of the Internet test the world for strength and, unlike Santa Claus, come to bad and disorderly boys and girls. And also to companies, corporations and data centers. And one could breathe about Russian maybe, but this problem has a global scope.
We are always carefully preparing for World Backup Day. For example, last year we conducted a global survey, according to which over 75% of consumers store their personal data in digital format. More than half of the respondents claim that their data is more valuable than the media devices themselves and recognize the need to protect them. The survey results also suggest that consumers, having lost their personal photos, will be almost three times more upset than when they lose their phone, computer or tablet.
At the same time, the study shows: despite the fact that users value their digital information, they make little effort to ensure its safety. Slightly less than half of the respondents re-save their data on an external device or in the cloud; the rest stores personal data exclusively on their computer.
Among those who use the backup system, only a third protect their entire digital environment, while the rest simply copy some files.
Despite comparative carelessness, almost 50% of respondents rate their data quite high: 50 thousand rubles or more. Only 5% of respondents are actually ready to spend this amount on data recovery in case of loss, however, 94% said they agreed to pay 3-4 thousand rubles at a time for preventive data protection and creating a backup copy of it.
And here are some more no less entertaining facts :
The reasons for data loss are many and every day new stories appear and more sophisticated methods of data theft and damage are created. We ourselves do not really like conspiracy theories, but the data can be intentionally spoiled and erased by competitors, your personal enemies and gambling hackers-amateurs. But still, there are several main causes of data loss.
We will now say a little strange thing, however, it is true, especially in the case of corporate data, which can be fabulously many. Not all data needs to be backed up in tightened mode. Before you start backing up and choosing several methods for this, evaluate the criticality and importance of further recovery. Yes, and for private users the same advice: do not copy everything. For example, part of the information can be easily obtained again or it loses its meaning after some time (attention! Term papers, diplomas and dissertations lose some of the value (well, okay, almost all of the value) only after protection. But the justification “hard flew” long ignored). After that, you can safely make backups.
Mirroring - creates a mirror of the source data. When deleting the main file, the file is also deleted in the mirror copy. The advantage of the method is that the data is backed up and restored quickly, minus the high risk of data loss.
Full backup - saves the entire system and all the data you need to protect. Frequent creation of full backups significantly facilitates recovery. Pros - fast and reliable recovery, minus - a slower backup process and the need to allocate a lot of space for backup storage (especially in the corporate sector).
Incremental backups back up changes made to the data since the last fact of incremental backups. Ensures that the backup is kept up to date. Pros - fast backups and low memory requirements, cons - slower recovery and the risk of data loss.
Differential backups save the changes made since the last full (not differential) backup. Requires more storage space for backups. Pros - speed and simplicity and reliability of recovery.
For best results, you need to combine methods and in addition to periodic full backups, use incremental and differential methods daily.
Data deduplication- Another technology used in backups. It consists in reducing the volume occupied by the stored data by identifying duplicate identical data and storing them only once. Thanks to deduplication, you can also reduce network congestion: if during backup it is found that the data block is a duplicate of the already saved ones, its contents are not transmitted over the network. You can talk a lot about finding and replacing duplicate links with a unique occurrence link, but Acronis has a cool case and we better illustrate deduplication with it.
The story is like that. One immodest advertising and production agency had several locations around the world to support international business operations. Users sitting in geographically dispersed offices shared files through the corporate intranet. The company's multimedia files consisted of broadcasts, streaming video, images, music, voice - they were then used to create content for customers (presentations, videos, and other production). Files were often transferred between places where they were processed according to customer requirements. This state of affairs led to duplication of data, which turned out to be scattered across the entire international IT infrastructure of the company. Naturally, all these media files consumed a large amount of disk space, which led to an increase in storage costs.
It was then that Acronis used deduplication - the amount of redundant company data was reduced by 300-500 GB daily. File storage and management has become much more efficient.
External hard drive: widely used, portable hard drive cheaper. BUT! Remember the frequent cases of sudden death of such devices.
Cloud storage: safely store data outside the office, you can distinguish access rights, files are safe and always accessible. This option is great for business data. When choosing a repository, keep in mind security classes.
Network Attached Storage (NAS) provides convenient access from anywhere on the network. Actually a separate computer (group of computers) with data. Such a solution is easily managed and administered.
Of course, for reliable protection of corporate data, backup storage locations are best combined according to a universal rule. Acronis recommends:
No need to be a greatcombinatormathematician to understand that a combination of different places and methods of creating backups significantly reduces the likelihood of an adverse event (data loss). This is almost the basic rule of backup. And yes, do not forget to delete unnecessary copies - this will allow you to save space and not get confused on the heap of unnecessary information.
What should individuals do? Yes, actually, the same thing - to store data in a distributed manner:
There is also a universal rule:
- When I said that you need to create backups of your data, I did not mean that you need to put all the eggs in one basket ...
Acronis’s previous post gave us a couple of days of truly heart-breaking stories. For each case described in the comments, it is possible to shoot IT horror films. Even the great Hitchcock could not have created such plots as the life of the Khabrovsk citizens had created: here there are fires, intrigues, and even revenge on shattered love. After this it was very difficult to fall asleep. Yes, we did not sleep, but chose the most-most.
As promised, we announce the results of the competition . One story is more captivating than another :)
1st place was taken by the user Pocket_virys , the prize was a Bluetooth speaker:
2nd place was taken by the user Llammt , she gets a portable charge:
And 3rd place and prize Bluetooth monopod goes to user Dum_spiro_spero :
We ask the winners to contact us through private messages .
In the meantime, we’re going to create backups and take the oath of World Backup Day. The postulate that the manuscripts are not burning easily refuted Gogol. The fact that data tends to disappear at the most inopportune moment is confirmed by the digital reality of the 21st century. So, until you’ve decided that “if it’s all lost, I’m going to live in the forest”, make sure that you have the best friends, pleasant memories and carefully saved data.
Happy International Backup Day!
And certainly not for nothing that International Backup Day is celebrated on the eve of April 1, when everyone can be fooled. By the way, it was at the beginning of April that a surge of attacks and cybercrimes took place - the dark forces of the Internet test the world for strength and, unlike Santa Claus, come to bad and disorderly boys and girls. And also to companies, corporations and data centers. And one could breathe about Russian maybe, but this problem has a global scope.
What we have - do not store, lost - weep
We are always carefully preparing for World Backup Day. For example, last year we conducted a global survey, according to which over 75% of consumers store their personal data in digital format. More than half of the respondents claim that their data is more valuable than the media devices themselves and recognize the need to protect them. The survey results also suggest that consumers, having lost their personal photos, will be almost three times more upset than when they lose their phone, computer or tablet.At the same time, the study shows: despite the fact that users value their digital information, they make little effort to ensure its safety. Slightly less than half of the respondents re-save their data on an external device or in the cloud; the rest stores personal data exclusively on their computer.
Among those who use the backup system, only a third protect their entire digital environment, while the rest simply copy some files.
Despite comparative carelessness, almost 50% of respondents rate their data quite high: 50 thousand rubles or more. Only 5% of respondents are actually ready to spend this amount on data recovery in case of loss, however, 94% said they agreed to pay 3-4 thousand rubles at a time for preventive data protection and creating a backup copy of it.
And here are some more no less entertaining facts :
- According to a National Archives & Records Administration in Washington study, 93% of companies that lost their data for 10 days or more filed for bankruptcy within one year after the disaster and 50% filed for bankruptcy almost immediately.
- A study by Richmond House Group found that 20% of small and medium-sized businesses are in almost complete disaster due to the loss of important data every five years.
- According to Gartner, in 2015, 40% of small and medium-sized businesses that use the Internet more than to check mail were open to hackers, and more than 50% of them were not even aware of the attacks.
How does the data go?
The reasons for data loss are many and every day new stories appear and more sophisticated methods of data theft and damage are created. We ourselves do not really like conspiracy theories, but the data can be intentionally spoiled and erased by competitors, your personal enemies and gambling hackers-amateurs. But still, there are several main causes of data loss.
- No backups are created. Companies and individuals simply do not defend themselves against potential threats. They naively believe that everything can happen, but not with them. However, this is perhaps the most common cause of data loss.
- My computer is out of order! The hard disk is damaged! What should I do?!
- Do you have a backup?
- What, with me? Is he going to explode now ?! - Storage of corporate data on unprotected employee computers. In this situation, several are to blame: the employee himself, the system administrator and the head of the company. Often, employee computers are poorly protected and the system administrator believes that tracking actions or, in an advanced case, closing the ability to write data to external media is enough to keep corporate information intact. Well, the employees themselves can safely use personal PCs for work purposes, and this is not regulated by the management in any way. As a result, losses occur both for random reasons (the laptop with the annual report fell, the flash drive drowned) and intentionally (the offended manager demolished the client base for reasons of revenge).
“It seems like time to implement a more rigorous backup strategy.” - Force majeure happens and, worst of all, it cannot be avoided. Floods, fires, short circuits, lightning strikes, and other natural and man-made disasters can cause permanent data loss along with physical media. If such a version seems implausible to you, you can listen to @@ Win32Sector, who told just about a similar case:
Once upon a time there were 6 iron servers in a small cozy server room. Nobody thought about backups only. Backups, but who needs them, not ssy, nothing will be lost, the general director told me, rejecting the next service about the need to purchase storage for backups. And 2 months after the last official note, a call rang at 4 a.m. on Sunday from the security guard on duty: “Something is smoking in your building there.” The dream took off like a hand, cold, sticky sweat, clenched anus - everything is like in a classic. An hour later I was there, and I was observing a burnt out building, including a server room. Everything that is acquired by excessive labor: two tape recorders, three cigarette cases ... But, then, now everything is as it should. Spacious server, backups to storage, backups to ribbons, remote storage - everything is just like in people.
- The drive is spoiling. It has been repeatedly proven that 100% of drives sooner or later break down for various reasons. Therefore, to backup only on one medium is rather reckless, although it is already much better than nothing.
- No matter how effective and sophisticated the antivirus is, sooner or later there will be a virus that can bypass everything or there will be a moment when the virus can penetrate the system, so you should not write off this method of data loss and assume that a PC with antivirus does not need data backup.
- Accidental loss of data due to negligence. In the private sphere, this may be damage to the medium or deletion of data, in the corporate sphere - worn records in the database, for example, in case of neglect of the policy of differentiation of access rights. Let's just say that a beginner who is not familiar with the working application and who has all the rights due to the administrator’s default laziness is a terrible threat to the integrity of corporate data. By the way, sometimes the employee himself finishes what is not yet done: when he realizes the loss of data, he tries to restore everything and cover up the tracks using, for example, arbitrary recovery software, reboot or reset - these steps lead to the absolute death of information.
- Data theft, although it is in last place on this list, does not occupy it. Data can be stolen intentionally or accidentally along with the medium (USB flash drive, camera, laptop). And in this case it is most difficult to restore them. Incidentally, 1 laptop is stolen every 53 seconds.
We will now say a little strange thing, however, it is true, especially in the case of corporate data, which can be fabulously many. Not all data needs to be backed up in tightened mode. Before you start backing up and choosing several methods for this, evaluate the criticality and importance of further recovery. Yes, and for private users the same advice: do not copy everything. For example, part of the information can be easily obtained again or it loses its meaning after some time (attention! Term papers, diplomas and dissertations lose some of the value (well, okay, almost all of the value) only after protection. But the justification “hard flew” long ignored). After that, you can safely make backups.
Backup Basics
There are several backup methods ...
Mirroring - creates a mirror of the source data. When deleting the main file, the file is also deleted in the mirror copy. The advantage of the method is that the data is backed up and restored quickly, minus the high risk of data loss.
Full backup - saves the entire system and all the data you need to protect. Frequent creation of full backups significantly facilitates recovery. Pros - fast and reliable recovery, minus - a slower backup process and the need to allocate a lot of space for backup storage (especially in the corporate sector).
Incremental backups back up changes made to the data since the last fact of incremental backups. Ensures that the backup is kept up to date. Pros - fast backups and low memory requirements, cons - slower recovery and the risk of data loss.
For best results, you need to combine methods and in addition to periodic full backups, use incremental and differential methods daily.
Data deduplication- Another technology used in backups. It consists in reducing the volume occupied by the stored data by identifying duplicate identical data and storing them only once. Thanks to deduplication, you can also reduce network congestion: if during backup it is found that the data block is a duplicate of the already saved ones, its contents are not transmitted over the network. You can talk a lot about finding and replacing duplicate links with a unique occurrence link, but Acronis has a cool case and we better illustrate deduplication with it.
The story is like that. One immodest advertising and production agency had several locations around the world to support international business operations. Users sitting in geographically dispersed offices shared files through the corporate intranet. The company's multimedia files consisted of broadcasts, streaming video, images, music, voice - they were then used to create content for customers (presentations, videos, and other production). Files were often transferred between places where they were processed according to customer requirements. This state of affairs led to duplication of data, which turned out to be scattered across the entire international IT infrastructure of the company. Naturally, all these media files consumed a large amount of disk space, which led to an increase in storage costs.
It was then that Acronis used deduplication - the amount of redundant company data was reduced by 300-500 GB daily. File storage and management has become much more efficient.
... several backup locations ...
External hard drive: widely used, portable hard drive cheaper. BUT! Remember the frequent cases of sudden death of such devices.
Cloud storage: safely store data outside the office, you can distinguish access rights, files are safe and always accessible. This option is great for business data. When choosing a repository, keep in mind security classes.
Network Attached Storage (NAS) provides convenient access from anywhere on the network. Actually a separate computer (group of computers) with data. Such a solution is easily managed and administered.
Of course, for reliable protection of corporate data, backup storage locations are best combined according to a universal rule. Acronis recommends:
No need to be a great
What should individuals do? Yes, actually, the same thing - to store data in a distributed manner:
- use cloud storage, synchronize important files with them;
- use external hard drives (do not drop or shake them strongly) and capacious flash drives of reliable manufacturers;
- use specialized backup software;
- Use the built-in features of the operating system.
There is also a universal rule:
- When I said that you need to create backups of your data, I did not mean that you need to put all the eggs in one basket ...
Results of the contest and previous post
Acronis’s previous post gave us a couple of days of truly heart-breaking stories. For each case described in the comments, it is possible to shoot IT horror films. Even the great Hitchcock could not have created such plots as the life of the Khabrovsk citizens had created: here there are fires, intrigues, and even revenge on shattered love. After this it was very difficult to fall asleep. Yes, we did not sleep, but chose the most-most.
As promised, we announce the results of the competition . One story is more captivating than another :)
1st place was taken by the user Pocket_virys , the prize was a Bluetooth speaker:
His story:
I haven’t done backups before ... I considered it an extra thing for myself. There were not so many files in electronic form. From a certain period I began to backup my phone, and then I also had Win Mob. 2003, as It was a long time to restore it after another Hard reseta. My laptop was still without backup, and why? there is C and D, I thought, if it’s not so simpler to reinstall the system in order to completely eliminate the problem, and my files will be saved on the D drive. Eh, youth ... Now I do backups regularly, and all because one “lady” with whom I had a long relationship, when parting in a fit of anger and resentment, in order to take revenge, my laptop was kicked with a knife !!! The blow came just in the area of my then 320GB railway. How strong women can be in a fit of anger! The knife went into the oil and damaged the case. He got to the railway. So I lost not just the performance of my laptop, but also all the most important photos from my school graduation and a trip to Yalta, as well as a vacation in Gelendzhik. They managed to collect bit by bit from other places. Now, the recovery points, archiving, cloud copies, etc. I do, though not regularly, but with some consistency.
2nd place was taken by the user Llammt , she gets a portable charge:
Her story:
This happened to me in the first month of my first job, when I was a naive graduate with a virgin-clean resume. In my opinion, I have never produced so many bricks at a time before or after ... It was in one research institute, it was necessary to programmatically process the results of experiments. For this purpose, I was allocated the only powerful computer in the entire institution. The hard disk on it turned out to be full - almost a terabyte of presentations, tables, reports, videotapes of conferences and other abstruse. I ask the head of the laboratory where to put all this. Zavlab authoritatively replies - no one on this computer has been working for a long time, nobody needs tables, if you need free disk space, then delete everything to hell with your grandmother. I quit Windows, install Linux, start working. A week passes, the second ... In the morning the manager calls me to his place. Here, - he says - such a thing.
And in room 28 there is only one computer - mine, a worker. And this terabyte of presentations with tables, which, together with Windows, went to digital paradise half a month ago, as it turns out, among other things, included an electronic chronicle of the whole research institute over the last * ten years!
Nobody even blamed me (they themselves didn’t know who they downloaded the archive from), but it was all the same terribly sad. But it ended with a happy ending. Hiren's CD of one of the earlier versions (some necromancer utility in its composition, I don’t remember the name) returned the demolished Windows to non-life, and I conjured this zombie for another day. As a result, about three quarters of the important information was resurrected, although in the form of numbered archives - but they were already sorted by unfortunate student interns. When the archive was finally restored, a copy was taken from it for the first time in the history of the research institute.
And in room 28 there is only one computer - mine, a worker. And this terabyte of presentations with tables, which, together with Windows, went to digital paradise half a month ago, as it turns out, among other things, included an electronic chronicle of the whole research institute over the last * ten years!
Nobody even blamed me (they themselves didn’t know who they downloaded the archive from), but it was all the same terribly sad. But it ended with a happy ending. Hiren's CD of one of the earlier versions (some necromancer utility in its composition, I don’t remember the name) returned the demolished Windows to non-life, and I conjured this zombie for another day. As a result, about three quarters of the important information was resurrected, although in the form of numbered archives - but they were already sorted by unfortunate student interns. When the archive was finally restored, a copy was taken from it for the first time in the history of the research institute.
And 3rd place and prize Bluetooth monopod goes to user Dum_spiro_spero :
His story:
Here's another story. I worked as a student in the distant 90s as an enikeyschikom ... no, as a system administrator in a certain trading office. And there was an accounting program that was regularly updated. To make an update according to all the rules, you had to make a backup, upgrade, deploy from the backup. I'm doing everything right, and ... backup databases do not want to deploy. And even cooler - an attempt to unzip the database leads to a blue screen. In general, I spent the whole night in the office, at 9 in the morning a deaf woman came - and I gave her - you just don’t worry - but your base - ... ... with the chief accountant I nearly had a heart attack. In the morning on the way to the institute I meet a friend - I talk about the event - he: “Ah, is this the office where you WORKED?”, I: “Yes, I'm afraid that is so.” Fortunately, floppy disks with a base two months ago were found, and then the whole office interrupted everything for two weeks. And here is a sadder story. Thieves climbed into our scientific institute, opened sixteen doors and stole laptops. And the shift ... was either asleep or frightened. Then they put video surveillance. A month later, the same thieves' company (from a nearby resident and an LCN) decided that it was necessary to repeat the sortie to the warehouse of free laptops and was safely detained. But the laptop with the incomplete dissertation of the chief has sunk into oblivion.
We ask the winners to contact us through private messages .
In the meantime, we’re going to create backups and take the oath of World Backup Day. The postulate that the manuscripts are not burning easily refuted Gogol. The fact that data tends to disappear at the most inopportune moment is confirmed by the digital reality of the 21st century. So, until you’ve decided that “if it’s all lost, I’m going to live in the forest”, make sure that you have the best friends, pleasant memories and carefully saved data.
Happy International Backup Day!