Why Back Up?

When was the last time you lost

precious time, energy, valuable information and perhaps even a business deal because the

data in your office was not backed-up? If that has been your experience then the

importance of data storage and backup would have sunk in by now. For, information is the

key for any business to be competitive. Be it a retailer who keeps stock of what is the

most favorite brand of cool drinks or a bank keeping track of the age group that spends

most on credit cards. All business of an organization revolves around the `data' that is

available. Whether it is the database, the CAD designs, the audio clip or the video

footage, all companies have come to realize the importance of data. The latest buzzwords

in the industry: data warehousing, ERP, ecommerce, all revolve around this data. And hence

the need to `store' and `back up' data becomes critical.






If data is lost and there is no backup then the time and cost of recreating the data can
even prove to be fatal to the business. As per a study, 20MB of data lost in sales and

marketing departments could take about 19 days and $17,000 to recreate. While the same

data to be recreated in the engineering department could go up to 42 days and $98,000.

These statistics go to show why a contingency backup plan for storing data is a necessity.






Storage of data is done at different levels, commonly classified as internal and external
or online and backup storage. The first and immediate storage option available in the

computer is the semiconductor and the hard disk. The semiconductor and hard disk offer

immediate accessibility, but at a relatively high cost, thereby making it suitable for

online operations.






Although hard disk drives are the most prominent storage medium for PCs and workstations,
several alternative technologies also serve the mass storage needs of computer users. Each

of these options has advantages and disadvantages compared with hard disk drives in terms

of performance, capacity, cost, and functionality.












Removable storage devices





As the processing of sensitive data moves from mainframe computers onto desktop PCs,
removable mass storage solutions have become increasingly important. While floppy

diskettes are the most common removable storage devices, they are inadequate for

applications that call for large volumes of data. For these applications, high capacity

removable mass storage devices are preferable. Removable mass storage devices come in many

forms, including tape cartridges, CD ROMs and other optical disks, magneto-optical disks,

and PC cards. Removable mass storage solutions are most appropriate for secondary storage

applications like data backup and archiving, rather than as a primary form of online

storage.






MAGNETIC TAPE: Commonly used on early mainframe computers, one of the first
computer storage technologies was the magnetic tape drive, or simply tape drive. Magnetic

tape is sequential data storage device. To read data, a tape drive winds through the spool

of tape to the exact location of the desired information. To write data, the tape drive

encodes it sequentially on the tape. Because tape drives cannot randomly access or write

data like disk drives, and are thus much slower, they have been replaced as the primary

storage device in most computer applications. However, with its high storage capabilities

and low cost-to-megabyte ratio, magnetic tape is still much in use as a storage medium for

archiving large amounts of data. Recent advances in tape technology, such as faster tape

drives, Digital Linear Tape, and digital audio tape (DAT) cartridges, Quarter Inch Tapes

(QIC) and Travan, have also made tape a preferred technology for backing up network

servers and other critical data.






OPTICAL DISKS: Optical disks hold large amounts of data from 128 to 2,000 MB on a
4.6-inch compact disk that looks and operates much like a music CD. Optical disk drives

use lasers to write and read from their media. When writing to an optical disk, a laser

creates pits on its surface to represent data. Areas not burned into pits by the laser are

called lands. The laser reads back the data on the optical disk by scanning for pits and

lands. While they offer high-capacity storage, optical disk drives are not nearly as fast

as hard disk drives.






There are three primary optical disk technologies available for storage: CD ROM drives,
WORM drives, and rewritable optical disks. CD ROMs are typically used to distribute large

databases and documents that require only periodic access and would thus not be a good use

of hard disk drive space. For example, encyclopedias and other large reference manuals

frequently are distributed on CD ROM. With their immense capacity, CD ROMs also are

finding acceptance in multimedia applications, and provide a convenient and cost-effective

way to distribute large software applications.






Rewritable optical disks are typically used for data backup and archiving massive amounts
of data such as image databases. Rewritable optical disk drive systems are very expensive.

WORM drives are used almost exclusively for archival storage where it is important that

the data cannot be changed or erased after it is written. For example, financial records

storage.






MAGNETO-OPTICAL DISKS: Magneto-optical (MO) disk systems combine the technology of
traditional magnetic media like hard disk drives with optical disk technology. MO

technology allows users to pack hundreds of megabytes of data on a disk that looks similar

to a traditional 3.5-inch floppy disk and typically comes in a 3.5- or 5.25-inch form

factor. An MO disk is made out of materials that cause it to be highly resistant to

magnetic fields or coercive force at room temperature.






PC CARDS: PC cards can be either storage or I/O cards. PC cards use little power
and are compact, highly reliable and lightweight, making them ideal for battery-powered

notebook and palmtop computers, handheld personal digital assistants (PDAs), and personal

communicator devices. Because of their diminutive size PC cards used for storage, commonly

called memory cards, make transporting data easy: they can be used for program storage or

data interchange between systems. Their low power, small size, and portability also

encourage the use of memory cards in a wide variety of new applications such as electronic

cameras, voice recorders, and portable phones.





The watchwords


Nevertheless, the cost per megabyte of storage, the speed and the capacity of storage

makes tape the most cost-effective backup storage product when compared to any other type
of backup devices. Tape offers long-term storage capabilities, ideal for archiving for 10
to 15 years. Tape represents the most versatile and economical backup technology, capable

of supporting storage needs from desktops to enterprises. Floppy, jaz and zip drives along

with media are also other backup devices in the storage segment used for various

applications.






Another category of storage products is the interface products that connect these backup
products to the system. The two types of interfaces are the Small Computer System

Interface (SCSI) and Intelligent Drive Electronics (IDE) drives and media. SCSI interface

drives and media work faster and are more expensive when compared to the IDE drives.

Ideally suited for server applications, the SCSI drives allow a total of seven peripheral

devices such as storage products and printers to be connected to the computer at the same

time. While the IDE also called as ATA by Seagate, is less expensive and allows a maximum

of two peripheral devices to be connected at the same time. In addition to these, there

are also a number of backup software packages available today, offering a range of

sophisticated features and benefits.






Cost, performance, speed and capacity are the watchwords before buying a storage product
suitable for an organization's needs. The choice of backup options is also determined by

applications and nature of businesses. For example, the data cartridges also offer

affordable backup for single workgroups, while DATs offer optimum price/performance ratio

for most PC LANs. Similarly, DLTs are the choice for high-end enterprise networks. Once

the type of backup product suited for the organization is identified a comprehensive data

backup strategy should also be devised.

Storage Products