When it comes to backing up important data, the storage device used is a crucial consideration. The right backup storage device provides reliability, ample storage capacity, and easy data access when needed for restores. There are several key options to evaluate when selecting a backup storage device.
What is Data Backup?
Data backup refers to the process of copying and archiving important business and personal files and folders. Backups provide a secondary copy of critical data that can be restored in the event of hardware failure, data corruption, accidental deletion, malware, or other disasters. Effective backups are essential for recovering from data loss and ensuring business continuity.
Some key reasons organizations and individuals perform regular backups include:
- Protection against data loss from hardware failure, such as a drive crash or storage array failure
- Recovery from data corruption caused by software faults or malware
- Ability to restore previous file versions after accidental deletion or overwrite
- Compliance with regulatory data retention and availability requirements
- Availability of data in the case of catastrophic system failure, security breach or other disaster
Without backups, recovering lost data may be impossible or require expensive data recovery services. Regularly backing up important files and system data is crucial for individuals and organizations of all sizes.
Types of Backup Storage Devices
There are several hardware and media options available for backup data storage, each with their own advantages and ideal use cases. Key criteria when selecting backup storage devices include:
- Capacity – The amount of data storage available
- Access speed – How quickly data can be written and read
- Portability – Whether the device is fixed or removable/mobile
- Durability – The expected lifetime of the media
- Cost – The affordability and value per gigabyte
Some of the most common backup storage devices and media include:
External Hard Drives
External hard drives connect to a computer, laptop, or server over USB, eSATA, Thunderbolt, or FireWire. They provide easily accessible offline storage for backup data. Advantages include fast transfer speeds, high capacities up to ~10TB, and relatively low prices per gigabyte. Portable drives allow physical transportation or offsite storage of backups. However, they can be dropped or damaged, and longer-term durability varies across models.
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
NAS devices are dedicated file storage appliances connected to a local area network. This allows shared access and centralized backups for multiple networked devices. NAS provides abundant capacities from 2 to over 100TB, and some models support redundant disks for fault tolerance. Speed varies; solid-state drive (SSD) NAS offers faster throughput. Management GUI and snapshot/replication capabilities make NAS convenient long-term backup storage.
Cloud Backup Services
Public cloud services like Amazon S3, Azure Backup, and Google Cloud Storage allow backups to be archived and restored over the internet. Cloud-based backups offer unlimited capacity, data accessibility from anywhere with an internet connection, and redundancy against local failures and disasters. Transfer speeds depend on internet bandwidth. Subscription costs can rise with large volumes of data. Security and compliance requirements also need to be evaluated when using public cloud storage.
Solid State Drives (SSDs)
Internal and external SSDs store data on fast, non-volatile flash memory chips rather than spinning hard disk platters. The benefits of SSD backups include high performance, compact form factors, durability, low power usage, and resistance to physical shocks. However, costs and capacities remain higher compared to HDDs. SSDs are ideal for server applications needing fast backup and restore speeds.
Optical Discs (CD/DVD/Blu-Ray)
Optical discs like CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs were once very common for data and video backups. Smaller capacities, slower write speeds, and shorter 10 to 100 year estimated lifetimes have decreased their backup usage. But optical discs retain niche uses for archiving data that rarely changes. Their durability makes them suitable for creating offline archives.
Magnetic Tape Cartridges
Magnetic tapes in sealed cartridges remain a staple for enterprise backups and archives. Their very long 30+ year shelf life, low cost per terabyte, and high capacities reaching 60TB (compressed) make tape ideal for infrequently accessed data. While sequential access is slower than disks, tape read/write speeds are still reasonably fast. Tape libraries automate cartridge handling for convenient backups and offsite media rotation.
Removable Media
This catch-all category includes a range of removable media types that provide portable data storage for backups. Options include:
- USB flash drives: Small, convenient for transferring smaller backups.
- SD cards: Widely used for mobile device and media storage.
- Zip disks: Magnetic removable disks with capacities up to 750MB.
- Jaz drives: Higher capacity 1-2GB magnetic removable drives.
These have more limited capacities compared to hard drives and other disk media. Their portability provides an easy way to manually take backups offsite and avoid becoming outdated.
Backup Storage Device Comparison
| Storage Type | Capacity Range | Access Speed | Portable | Estimated Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| External HDD | 500GB – 10TB | Fast | Yes | 3-5 years |
| NAS | 2TB – 100+TB | Medium – Fast | No | 5-10 years |
| Cloud Storage | Unlimited | Varies by bandwidth | Accessible online | With provider |
| SSD | 250GB – 16TB | Very Fast | External SSDs | 5-10 years |
| Optical Discs | 650MB – 128GB | Slow | Yes | 10-100 years |
| Tape Cartridges | 6TB – 60TB | Medium | Manually swapped | 30+ years |
| Flash drives / SD cards | 16GB – 2TB | Fast | Yes | 5-10 years |
This comparison highlights the key differences in backup storage capabilities that impact their ideal usage situations. When selecting a backup device, match its strengths to your specific backup storage needs in terms of capacity, speed, retention and accessibility.
Choosing a Backup Destination
With an understanding of the various backup storage device options, several factors come into play when choosing the best place to store backup copies:
Backup Capacity Requirements
Consider the volume of data that needs to be backed up and choose a device with ample capacity, or determine if a combination of multiple devices is needed. While disk and cloud can provide effectively unlimited capacity, tape or optical discs may be preferred for smaller, archival backups.
Access Frequency
Backups containing frequently accessed data will benefit from faster performing storage like SSD. Less accessed backups, like monthly archives, can go on lower cost but slower tape or cloud storage.
Security and Compliance
Regulated data may require encrypted backups stored only locally or on compliant cloud services. HIPAA, PII, and financial data often precludes public cloud storage. Tape provides an offline air gap.
Restore Speed Requirements
Backups holding critical data that may need rapid restoring after an outage would demand faster storage like SSD. Cloud restores are limited by internet speeds. Tape has slower access.
Retention Period
Long-term archives call for durable media like LTO tape or optical discs with 30+ year shelf lives. Shorter term backups can use HDDs, SSDs, or flash drives and get rotated out incrementally.
Geographic Redundancy
To protect against site disasters, consider an additional backup destination at a different geographic location. Common approaches include a cloud storage tier or external HDD rotations to an offsite facility.
Budget
While backup storage is a crucial IT investment, costs need to align with budgets. Lower capacity flash drives or discs work for smaller data sets. Cloud services offer flexible spending models. Tape balances value for larger archives.
Recommended Backup Devices
Given these decision factors, examples of recommended backup storage solutions for various use cases include:
Personal User File Backup
An external hard drive provides ample capacity for backing up a personal computer’s documents, photos, media files, and system images at regular intervals. Alternately, cloud backup services like Backblaze offer private encryption key options at affordable subscription costs.
Small Business Server Backup
A small company server can maintain fast onsite backups to one or more NAS appliances – with RAID storage for redundancy – and periodically archive backups to cheaper external HDDs rotated on/offsite.
Encrypted Compliance Data Archive
For financial records, healthcare data, or other regulated information requiring onsite retention, LTO tape cartridges provide cost-effective encrypted offline storage for archival. Tapes get locked and rotated offsite.
Frequent Vital Data Backup
A server hosting databases or shares with constantly changing critical company data demands high performance and redundant storage. Mirrored or RAID SSDs provide speed, while replication to an offsite NAS or cloud tier adds resilience.
Large Media Archive
Storing enormous volumes of larger files like video assets indicates LTO tape as a dense cold storage tier. An onsite tape library automates cartridge handling during backups. Optical discs can store infrequently accessed media as well.
Software and Procedures
The right backup destination hardware is only one part of a comprehensive backup strategy. Effective backup policies also require:
- Backup software to automate copying files to the selected storage devices on a schedule.
- Documented retention policies that define what gets backed up and for how long.
- Regular backup testing via test restores to validate recoverability.
- Offsite rotation for storing backup media at an alternate facility against site disasters.
- Monitoring of space usage and tracking of backups for compliance.
Backup software tailors the source data selections, frequencies, retention rules, and destination storage targets to meet requirements. All personnel should understand backup procedures in case restores become necessary.
Testing restores at least annually ensures backups remain viable as environments evolve. Backup maintenance like storage additions or feature upgrades should also occur before capacities are exceeded.
Conclusion
Choosing suitable backup destinations helps protect against catastrophe scenarios through reliable restoration of important data. Matching the backup storage device characteristics – like speed, capacity, portability and durability – to the data types, retention needs and frequency of access ensures backup success and future recoverability.
With standard HDDs and SSDs providing easily accessible and fast onsite backup, affordable LTO tape handling larger archives, versatile NAS appliances for networked devices, and cloud solutions for offsite redundancy, organizations have multiple options to design a tiered backup storage approach.
Regularly backing up to these destination devices – with tested corresponding restore plans – gives invaluable insurance against data loss events. The ability to recover and resume business after hardware failures, cyber incidents, human errors and disasters hinges on proper backup storage selection and procedures.