 Backup software is a critical piece in your disaster recovery software toolkit. If you are considering backup of only a single computer that you use at home, it may already have a backup program installed. Be wary of these—in some cases these are trial versions of larger commercial packages that will expire after a certain period of time, or they may be “stripped-down” versions of programs that omit a feature or features that you really need.
This is not to say that you can’t use the program included in your system, but just be sure that you understand what you really have and if it will really do what you need, when you need it. In addition, don’t overlook free software options, such as those that are available via open-source. These can be very satisfactory options for your need and won’t break your bank account. Finally, keep your backup and restore software current—check the manufacturer’s support internet website for any updates that you may need, or sign up for automatic email notifications of updates. When you go shopping for backup software, you’ll likely run into a variety of terms that may seem confusing or just make no sense to you. Here is some information on some of the terms you may see and what they mean when it comes to backing up data.
Append Media/Overwrite Media—With this feature, the backup program has the ability to append to existing backup files on existing backup media, or to overwrite the backup files on existing media, preventing you from having to manually do this.
Backup Security—This feature allows you to specify a password to be associated with the backup. Without providing the password the program will not allow the data to be restored from the backup. If you use this feature, of course you should choose a good password and one that you don’t lose.
Backup Type—Full backup allows you to make a full copy of an entire disk, and you should also have options for incremental and differential backups.
Backup Verification—This ensures that the file backup is good by comparing it to the original file.
Compression—Compression is just what it sounds like; it compresses the data as it is backed up in order to save space. While this compression may take a bit longer on the backup (it takes time to compress the data) the savings in media space can be considerable. You may be able to backup an entire hard drive using only a fraction of its non-compressed size. For example, compression may allow 110 gigabytes of data to be backed up to 60 gigabytes of space, meaning less costs on backup storage media (like external hard disks or CDs/DVDs).
Disaster Recovery Disk Creation—An important feature that will help you if your computer won’t start (boot). A disaster recovery disk is a disk (or it can also be a flash drive, or memory card depending on the software) that you can use to start your computer without using the hard disk. Once the computer starts, there is software on the disaster recovery disk that lets you access your data backup in order to restore the files in the backup. In a worst-case scenario, you may not be able to get the system running, but you can at least get to your backup set and its files.
Media Options—Most commercial programs will support a variety of backup media, including backup to internal hard disks, external hard disks, CDs, DVDs, and tapes. Make sure that the program supports the device(s) you want to use. In addition to the type of media, check if there are any key restrictions on the hardware devices that the software interacts with. You’ll want to be sure that your program can support your specific hard disk, or specific CD/DVD drive at its fastest rate of operation. Finally, if you are going to rely on tape for your backup, see if the software has options to work with tapes such as cataloguing and formatting the tape; your tape drive unit manufacturer may have provided software to do this so having it in your backup program may be redundant.
Operating System—What operating system does the program support? This should match your computer. Further, be sure that the program supports the version of the operating system you are running. For example, make sure that if it is a Windows backup program, that it supports the version of Windows you are running (Windows 7, Vista, or even XP). If you are running Linux, the version of Linux may be important.
Scheduling—Scheduling means that you can set the program to “wake up” and start a backup at a specific point in time and usually on a recurring schedule you specify. This is handy for large backups to happen when you are away from the keyboard, such as weekly, on Sundays at 2:00AM.
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