Computer Data Backups

Who backs-up their data? Survey commissioned by Seagate in May 2012: 27% of U.S. adults personally have lost files and found that it was upsetting for them 11% have a continuous backup plan 10% have a daily backup plan Survey conducted by Parks Associates in 2011: < 25% of households in the survey have a weekly backup plan 4% are diligent enough to manually perform a backup on a daily basis

Why backup your data? Theft Damage Hardware failures Viruses, malware, ransomware Natural disasters

What makes a good backup system? Occurs automatically – “set it and forget it” Occurs at a regular interval (daily/weekly) Stored in a remote location Easily accessible Not dependent on a single piece of hardware/media

CD’s & DVD’s Longevity: Unrecorded burnable media lasts 5-10 years According to manufacturers, CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R discs should have a life expectancy of 100 to 200 years or more More conservative estimates say 5-20 years Factors that affect disc life expectancy include the following: type manufacturing quality condition of the disc before recording quality of the disc recording handling and maintenance environmental conditions

Flash Drives Can last up to 10 years 10,000 to 100,000 write/erase cycles, depending on the memory technology used Easily lost or damaged

Hard Drives & Solid State Drives (SSD’s) HD’s: 3-5 year lifespan SSD’s: 10,000 to 100,000 write/erase cycles, depending on the memory technology used

Cloud Sync Providers Syncs the contents of a folder to cloud servers, and to other computers that you choose Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/ Free size: 2GB Google Drive https://www.google.com/drive/ Free size: 15GB Microsoft OneDrive https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/ Free size: 5GB

Cloud-based Backup Providers Service that runs on your computer that sends copies of your files to cloud servers http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2288745,00.asp http://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-cloud-backup,review-2678.html Single computer plans start at around $60/year Based on the two review articles above, CrashPlan is the top rated service.