Always have a backup plan , Don’t hoard data

Save it or lose it

Don’t wait until it’s too late – back­ing up your digital memor­ies now will ensure that you have the chance to cher­ish them forever.

 it’s a mis­con­cep­tion that back­ing up data is a com­plex pro­cess, as there are plenty of user-friendly tools, accord­ing to david. — palo alto net­works

  San­tam­aria recom­mends dis­con­nect­ing the backup stor­age medium from the inter­net for bet­ter secur­ity. — Folio photon­ics 

 

d’hal­luin says fig­ur­ing out what data needs to be backed up is a top pri­or­ity. — datadobi 

 With every­one logged in to the digital world and with the wide­spread use of smart­phones, it’s sur­pris­ing how little atten­tion has gone towards pre­serving digital memor­ies.

to remind every­one of its import­ance, it was World Backup Day on Fri­day, March 31, which has been cel­eb­rated since 2011.

World Backup Day ori­gin­ated from a Red­dit post by a user lament­ing the loss of con­tent on a hard drive after hav­ing over­looked back­ing up its data.

if this sounds famil­iar, con­sider tak­ing steps to keep your files safe since you never know when they could just dis­ap­pear, as hard­ware fail­ure is unpre­dict­able.

Duplic­at­ing data

in short, a backup means copy­ing data from a device to another loc­a­tion, be it a thumbdrive, an external hard drive or a cloud ser­vice.

But this isn’t lim­ited to just data files, as oper­at­ing sys­tems can be backed up too so that you have a restore point in case the hard drive or solid-state drive (SSD) it is installed on fails or gets cor­rup­ted.

Palo Alto Net­works’ Asean sys­tem engin­eer­ing head, David Rajoo, says, “Back­ing up your data is cru­cial in today’s digital age, but it’s often over­looked, espe­cially by non-tech-savvy indi­vidu­als.

“Com­mon mis­con­cep­tions include think­ing that backups are time-con­sum­ing and com­plic­ated.

“however, incor­por­at­ing backups into your daily routine or opt­ing for user-friendly solu­tions can sim­plify the pro­cess.

“it’s vital to con­sider vari­ous stor­age options as hard drives can fail, res­ult­ing in data loss.

“it’s vital to con­sider vari­ous stor­age options as hard drives can fail, res­ult­ing in data loss.

“Cloud stor­age is a pop­u­lar option, with the added bene­fit of hav­ing remote access and com­ing with vari­ous stor­age plans,” he says.

Most would be famil­iar with cloud stor­age ser­vices like Google Drive, which can be used to auto­mat­ic­ally sync files on a com­puter or smart­phone to the cloud.

There are other altern­at­ives, like Onedrive and Drop­box, which offer free and paid plans, but Drive is one of the more gen­er­ous ones, offer­ing 15GB at no cost.

Tthis might sound like a lot, but for those with extens­ive lib­rar­ies of con­tent like ripped CDS and Blu-rays, that’s def­in­itely not going to be enough.

Identi­fy­ing what’s import­ant before back­ing up is key, accord­ing to Carl D’hal­luin, chief tech­no­logy officer of Datadobi.

“Fail­ing to backup your data can have cata­strophic con­sequences, as a single hard­ware fail­ure, cyber­at­tack, or nat­ural dis­aster can wipe out all your valu­able inform­a­tion, leav­ing you with no way to recover it.

“Fail­ing to backup your data can have cata­strophic con­sequences, as a single hard­ware fail­ure, cyber­at­tack, or nat­ural dis­aster can wipe out all your valu­able inform­a­tion, leav­ing you with no way to recover it.

“this means that years of hard work can all be lost in an instant, with no chance of retrieval.

“identi­fy­ing the vital data that requires pro­tec­tion should be the first step in the pro­cess,” he says.

Those primar­ily using Android smart­phones can rely on Google Pho­tos, which syncs images, and icloud for Apple devices, as it’s tightly integ­rated into the com­pany’s eco­sys­tem.

Mod­ern Android devices also tend to have built-in sup­port for cloud ser­vices like Google Drive and Sam­sung Cloud, though these are lim­ited to files and apps and not the oper­at­ing sys­tem.

those in the cus­tom Android ROM com­munity will be famil­iar with recov­ery firm­ware like TWRP that can be used to cre­ate a Nandroid backup to restore the oper­at­ing sys­tem and apps to their pre­vi­ous states.

the same can be said for both MACOS and Win­dows, though Microsoft hasn’t updated its tool for a long time.

the built-in backup tool is hid­den away in the con­trol panel of Win­dows 10 and 11 and is spe­cific­ally marked as for Win­dows 7, with even Microsoft recom­mend­ing that users shift away from the backup tool.

Pop­u­lar altern­at­ives among enthu­si­asts include the free AOMEI Backup­per and the paid-only Mac­rium, which allow users to select a drive (in this case, the one the oper­at­ing sys­tem is installed on) and cre­ate a backup image peri­od­ic­ally or on demand.

this backup can be used to restore the oper­at­ing sys­tem when the need arises.

Apple’s time Machine can sim­il­arly be used to cre­ate sys­tem images of MACOS, and the pro­cess can be sched­uled.

An external drive should first be plugged into the Mac and selec­ted as the backup drive – once done, it will be exclus­ively used to store backups.

the backup, which can be con­figured in sys­tem set­tings, allows users to select the drives to be backed up, the backup fre­quency, and exclude files to save space.

Apple recom­mends that the backup drive have at least double the stor­age of the drive being backed up.

By the num­bers

A pop­u­lar strategy adop­ted by the industry is the 3-2-1 backup rule, which was brought up by David.

“When cre­at­ing a backup strategy that works best for you, it’s import­ant to pri­or­it­ise which data to back up first.

“the most cru­cial data to pri­or­it­ise are the types of data that are dif­fi­cult or impossible to replace if lost, such as pho­tos and videos of import­ant memor­ies, work doc­u­ments, and fin­an­cial data.

“Once you’ve determ­ined which data needs to be backed up first, fol­low­ing the 3-2-1 backup rule is recom­men­ded.

“this rule involves hav­ing three cop­ies of your data, with two on dif­fer­ent media types and one stored off­s­ite,” he says.

For instance, if you own a desktop or laptop, you should back up your data to an external drive and the cloud.

Most external drives are com­pact and can be had for cheap these days. if money is no object, you could invest in net­work­at­tached stor­age that will also give you remote access to your files, but this also requires more work.

This will ensure that you have a local copy if something goes wrong, allow­ing you to get your data back in the fast­est pos­sible time.

And hav­ing your data on the cloud will ensure that your data is safe should you lose both your local stor­age due to, say, fire or flood.

Leav­ing the sec­ond­ary local stor­age (like an external drive or thumbdrive) dis­con­nec­ted from the inter­net also serves as an added secur­ity meas­ure.

Accord­ing to Steven San­tam­aria, CEO of Folio Photon­ics, a well-designed data pro­tec­tion strategy should look into both phys­ical and digital secur­ity to safe­guard crit­ical data.

“the most effect­ive data pro­tec­tion strategy should also incor­por­ate a data stor­age plat­form that can be securely archived in an off­s­ite loc­a­tion, with the added bene­fit of being taken off­line for even greater secur­ity.

“this means that the stor­age plat­form is phys­ic­ally sep­ar­ated from the main net­work and dis­con­nec­ted from the inter­net, mak­ing it res­ist­ant to cyber­at­tacks and other forms of data breaches,” he says.

David recom­mends tak­ing the extra step of encrypt­ing the backup data.

“Although this may seem daunt­ing, many backup ser­vices include encryp­tion as part of their pack­age.

“By encrypt­ing your backups, you can pro­tect your data from unau­thor­ised access in the event of theft or loss.

“By encrypt­ing your backups, you can pro­tect your data from unau­thor­ised access in the event of theft or loss.

“Ensure your backup data is pass­word-pro­tec­ted, and avoid using simple pass­words or com­monly guessed words.

“For cloud-based backups, con­sider using two-factor authen­tic­a­tion to add an extra layer of secur­ity.

“this involves requir­ing a pass­word and a sec­ond­ary authen­tic­a­tion method, such as a fin­ger­print or a code sent to your phone,” he says.

he con­cludes by say­ing that it’s also vital to ensure that the backups are vir­us­free by scan­ning the sys­tem with reput­able anti­virus and anti-mal­ware soft­ware before back­ing up. 

 By CHRISTOPHER FAM life­styletech@the­star.com.my 

 

Don’t hoard data

 

The digital Cleanup day initiative is intended to get users into the habit of sorting and discarding unwanted data while being mindful of the ‘digital waste’ they are generating. — Freepik.com

Due to cloud services, people can store seemingly infinite amounts of data without worrying about using up physical space on their personal devices.

However, Estonia’s Let’s Do It Foundation wants users to think about the environmental impact of hoarding data.

Last month, it launched the Digital Cleanup Day initiative to get users into the habit of sorting and discarding unwanted data while being mindful of the “digital waste” they are producing.

According to the foundation, “This digital waste creates digital pollution that continues to consume energy even when we have forgotten it.

“Digital trash sits in the backups on servers that provide us with cloud service and continue consuming electricity.”

The International Energy Agency estimates that data centres and data transmission networks are responsible for nearly 1% of energyrelated greenhouse gas emissions.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals listed reducing greenhouse gas emissions as part of a crucial measure to lessen the impact of climate change.

It raised concerns that droughts brought on by rising temperatures may displace 700 million people by 2030.

A 2020 report by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) called for the large-scale adoption of environmentally responsible online behaviour, which it said was vital for “combating climate change and promoting sustainability”.

Habits it recommends include deleting non-essential content on cloud services or when the data is no longer needed.

Users should also optimise their cloud storage by identifying and deleting duplicate content – most cloud services either offer tools for this or do it automatically.

On devices like the iphone, the Photos app can be used to find duplicate images and videos.

Tapping on Albums and clicking on Duplicates under Utilities will show the similar files next to each other. This feature is available in IOS 16.

There is also an option to merge duplicates. According to Apple, “merging combines the highest quality version and all the relevant data across the duplicates, and this version will remain in the library”. The remaining duplicates will be put into the Recently Deleted album.

On Android, the Files By Google app has a Clean feature that will scan the phone and recommend content to delete, including large files, old screenshots and downloaded data.

Alternatively, users can archive information on external drives, which don’t run on electricity.

If deletion is not an option, the files can be compressed to save space. Popular tools on the market include Winzip and WINRAR, which allow files to be compressed, although they are better at shrinking the size of some files than others.

The files can also be password protected for additional security. Do note that the compression employed by these apps won’t result in a loss of quality for photos or videos.

Another aspect that users should consider is the carbon footprint of emails.

Statistics on The Carbon Literacy Project show that actions like sending a short email from the phone generate 0.2g of CO2, while taking 10 minutes to send out an email to 100 people is responsible for 26g of CO2.

According to the Let’s Do It Foundation, 281 billion emails are sent out each day, taking an average person three hours a day to refresh, read and reply to work messages.

The foundation felt that it was necessary to limit the ineffective practice of organising work through emails.

To avoid accumulating email messages, it’s best to unsubscribe from irrelevant mailing lists or mark unwanted emails as spam so they get deleted after a set period.

Let’s Do It also recommends that users clean up their Inbox by searching for common names or addresses to round up similar messages and delete them, while only keeping the latest.