Mar 28, 2019

BACKUP – When disaster strikes is too late.

W e lose things all the time. Your data could be the heart of your business and to lose that could be a disaster. Backing up your data is your solution. Your server could fail, you could be hacked, receive a virus, or the hard drive could crash and the information lost or corrupted. A backup plan is essential and takes only a little time to get set up and regularly backup your valuable information.

Options

  • Backup to secondary hard drive. Just attach and backup daily, weekly or as you determine. You can add and run a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) to spread data over multiple disks and with battery backup provides data protection from power loss during the backup process. Limestone Networks offers RAID and recommends its use to boost backup performance and recovery.  Pros: Simple and inexpensive. Cons: Extended downtime or loss of both drives with the server. It too will eventually fail. redundant array of independent disks
  • Backup to network attached storage. For a monthly fee you can subscribe to online services that will provide a remote disk that you can run a backup copy on and access in time of need. Basically the same thing as backing up to another hard drive in another server and hosting companies like Limestone Networks offer NAS drives as a part of their regular service offering. They offer this for all their active servers complimentary up to 20 gigabits. Pros: The information can be restored from the backup whenever your disaster strikes from their service backup. Cons: Only as good as the service provider and it does cost a monthly fee. Not necessarily off site but is away from the server.
  • Backup using incremental real-time agent. There are companies such as Acronis and Backblazethat provide cloud backup services. Limestone and Acronis have a hosting partnership, allowing all Limestone clients the opportunity to use Acronis’s industry-leading backup agent to store their backups on Limestone’s triple-redundant Salt Lake City disaster recovery datacenter. These backups are transferred over Limestone’s private network connection between our DFW1/LAX1 facilities and the SLC1 facility so your server’s public network bandwidth is not used performing the backups. Together with the powerful agent tools of Acronis and the reliability of Limestone Networks cloud storage at affordable pricing, Limestone clients sleep easy with the assurance of their data being stored safely and securely off site.

Best Practices

Backup in multiple formats.  Redundant backup, preferably away from your physical server, on a regular schedule is your best bet when disaster does strike.