Four Common Myths About Backup Software
Computers affect the way we live, communicate, work and entertain ourselves today more than ever. So the information stored in them becomes very significant. Losing data from your hard drive is at least unpleasant, but in some cases also very expensive. At the same time, not all of us take steps to protect your data. Also, day after day we hear about alarming data loss accidents. But why are reliable backup strategies not as widespread as data lock accidents? – Perhaps, because people have wrong notions about backup software and data loss problem in general.
Valuable personal and work data is stored on a computer’s hard drive, but no hard drive is perfect. Sometimes they die, just like the stored information. Furthermore, viruses, human error, and even natural disasters or theft can take your data beyond restoration. A reliable solution to the problem of data loss is backup software that makes backup copies of your critical data automatically. There is a wide variety of this type of secure data program to choose from. But why do people still ignore this software?
In this article, we’ll try to point out some possible reasons to ignore backup software and bust some backup myths that prevent people from using them. We have summarized these notions in four common “myths” and will try to expose them.
o Myth 1: The risk of data loss is negligible
Some people believe that data loss is not their problem.
Why don’t they care? Because they simply don’t know anything about potential critical hardware failures and the destructive effect of such failures on stored information.
Actually, there are high risks of data loss. According to the survey conducted by Verio (World’s Premier Provider of Online Services), fifty-three percent of respondents have already experienced an actual loss of information stored on a PC. Six percent of PCs will experience a data loss episode in any given year. 31% of PC users have ever lost all of their files due to events beyond their control.
The reasons for data loss can vary greatly: power failure, short hardware life, virus or hacker attacks… The fact is that you can irretrievably lose the information stored on your home or work computer. (ie project data, email correspondence, personal information, irreparable and urgent documents) if the hard drive fails.
Learn from the mistakes of others: a thoughtless attitude towards data backup has fatal consequences. Most of the people and organizations come to understand this only after accidentally losing their crucial data. With special backup software, your data is more likely to always be at hand.
o Myth 2: Copying files manually is more effective
Some people are aware of the risk of data loss and try to fix this problem without special backup software. These people protect the data on their own.
The common practice for these people is to copy data to digital media from time to time. In other words, they copy your data without any backup software. Of course, it’s better than nothing. But is it enough to guarantee data protection? You can simply forget to back up before a hard drive failure and your previous backup job will become a real waste of time. Also, you can forget about copying some files that you may need especially after data loss.
With special backup software, you can use automated procedures to perform regular backups and synchronizations on your own schedule. The backup software will do all the routine work of copying files for you, you just need to configure what, when and where you want to backup.
In other words, manual file copying is not as reliable and convenient as using special data backup software.
o Myth 3: Backup software sufficiently slows down computer performance
Some people think that backup jobs require too many hardware resources (disk space and CPU time) and it is exhausting to run them frequently. They suspect that the backup software will prevent the use of the computer for work, entertainment, or other purposes.
In fact, most backup programs are not very resource intensive. A typical backup program requires only an installed operating system and approximately 5 MB of free disk space for program files. So, if your computer meets these requirements, you have nothing to worry about. In other words, if your computer can have an operating system running, it will easily run a backup program.
Plus, with a scheduler you can set your backup operations to run at the most convenient time. For example, during lunch time or when you sleep. Also, some backup programs can run in service mode. In service mode, the backup is independent of the currently logged in user. The benefit is that your backup jobs are processed even if someone else is using the system at the time or if no one is logged in.
As you can see, with a good backup program you can perform backup operations at any time you want. It means you can have backups running when you are idle and they won’t interfere with your work.
o Myth 4: Using backup software is difficult, time consuming and expensive
The imagined difficulties of data backup procedures make users think of backup as a waste of time and money and as a result they reject it, hoping for the best.
We are busy at work, family and friends fill our days leaving little time for boring things like computer maintenance. But backing up data is much easier than it seems.
Forget fairy tales about the bewildering complexity of backup programs! Most backup programs have wizards with an intuitive user interface that allow you to set up your backup task with ease.
A typical backup program can be installed in several minutes. Setting up a backup task takes several more minutes. That is all. Then the backup program will take care of your crucial data.
After all, the price of such a program ($30-70 per individual license) is much less than the costs of data loss.
We have tried to expose some myths about backups and point out some positive abilities that backup software gives us. Today’s backup software offers a convenient way to back up your critical data. As more people become familiar with automated backup solutions, they tend to become must-have software, along with email clients, word processors, and antivirus programs.
References:
1. Verio survey reveals that small business data is vulnerable to loss. September 28, 2006 – http://www.verio.com/about/newsroom/pr/
2. Online Backup Market Research – http://www.meganet.net/pdfs/onlinebkresearch.pdf
3. ADR Data Recovery – Data Loss Statistics: http://www.adrdatarecovery.com/content/adr_loss_stat.html
