Are you feeling a little anxious? That’s likely because today, March 31, is World Backup Day. It was first started in 2011 as a made-up day to raise awareness of data backups and the increasing role of digital information in daily lives.
If you wonder who made it up, nobody knows for sure since it was from a Reddit group, but the day also helps storage vendors sell products. So, go figure! And here’s the list of excellent storage deals you can get today!
So, what’s a backup?
Philosophically, data backup is like a health or car insurance policy. We need it, yet we hope we’ll never need to resort to it.
Practically, a backup is an extra copy of the data you put away, separate from the version you’re using. The more copies you have, the safer your information is, and you generally need at least one additional copy.
The more often your data changes, the more regularly backups should be performed. Depending on your needs, there are different ways to make a backup.
How do I back up?
The simplest way is to manually make a duplicate of your data and place it somewhere else. Copying files on a thumb drive and then tucking it away will do. Or, for a small document, you can even email it to yourself.
Ideally, though, you want a backup solution that happens automatically after the initial setup without you having to get involved.
So, the best way to handle this critical task is to set up a backup scheme, which is easy enough and relatively cheap to achieve nowadays. You can indeed set up data backup once and then forget about it.
Types of backups
There are generally three types of backups: online, local, and network. Each has pros and cons, but any is better than no backup. And it doesn’t hurt to use all three—in fact, you should. Let’s find out more about each.
The 3-2-1 rules of backups
In data backups, there’s a minimum “3-2-1 rule”: You should keep at least three copies of your data using at least two (types of) storage devices, one of which must be offsite.
1. Online backup
Online backup, often referred to as “cloud backup,” is when you upload your data to a remote server—a computer or computers located elsewhere in the world. Typical examples are Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Google Drive.
You only need to sign up for one of the three. Then, download the software for your platform, run it, and follow the self-explanatory instructions.
Online backup: Pros and Cons
Online backups keep your data safe from disasters like fires or floods—your data is stored offsite at the service provider’s data centers.
You can perform a backup and access your files from anywhere as long as you have an Internet connection. One online account can work for multiple machines, and you can even sync data between them.
Finally, you won’t need to worry about maintaining the backup destination. But with that comes the catches.
Due to the constraints of the Internet speed, it takes a long time to back up or retrieve a large amount of data.
The backup process also strains your Internet connection’s upload pipe, making it not ideal for slow Internet connections.
And finally, using an online service means you will, for the most part, have to surrender your privacy, and your data is susceptible to hacking.
Specifically, if you leak your account credentials (username and password), the bad guy can obtain that vital document or those private photos. That has happened.
Who should use the online backup?
If you use a smartphone, chances are you’re already using some online backup solution via Apple’s iCloud (iDevices) or Google’s Drive/Photos apps (Android).
This type of backup is excellent for computer users who have small amounts of lightweight data, such as Word or Excel documents.
If you have more, consider getting a fast broadband connection and prepare to pay for the extra online storage space.
2. Local backup
This type of backup is the easiest and most popular.
A typical example is using an external drive, such as a portable drive that connects directly to a computer using a peripheral port, namely a USB or Thunderbolt. If you have a desktop (or even certain laptops), you can add an internal secondary hard drive or SSDs as the permanent backup destination.
After that, use Time Machine on a Mac or File History on a Windows machine. These two applications automatically back up your data regularly, as often as every few minutes. Some portable drives include third-party backup software you can also use.
If you get a few external drives and remove them from the computer after a full backup, that’d be an excellent offline solution that keeps your data safe against ransomware.
Local backup: Pros and Cons
Generally, you can back up a large amount of data easily if your computer has a fast USB/Thunderbolt peripheral connection or when you use a secondary internal drive.
Also, there’s minimal setup or configuration, and you don’t need the Internet.
Finally, if you use a RAID 1 solution, such as a desktop external drive like the My Book Duo, your data is safe, even if one of the internal drives on the backup storage dies.
As the name suggests, local backups can handle only one computer at a time. They require a drive to connect to a computer directly and are, therefore, inconvenient for mobile users or multiple users on a local area network.
Additionally, ransomware attacks can render any connected local backup drive useless. The content of the drive is affected, as is the rest of the computer.
Who should use the local backup?
A local backup will benefit desktop users the most, though mobile users can also get an ultra-portable drive, like one of these portable SSDs, to back up their notebooks.
Some portable drives also work with Android or iOS devices. However, in this case, they are too clunky to rely on.
Here are some options for the local backups—many of them are on sale on World Backup Day:
- If you want to back up a laptop on the go, pick one of these top portable SSDs. You can quickly move the drive between multiple computers.
- If you have a desktop, an external desktop drive is a better fit. Consider the WD Mybook or My Book Duo (with RAID options), which nowadays has tens of TB of storage space.
3. Network backup
This type of backup uses a network-attached storage (NAS) server that connects to your router or a switch, allowing users to back up multiple devices simultaneously.
A NAS server can also work as your cloud storage for you to back up data to it over the Internet. It’s like having an online backup service of your own.
Network backup: Pros and Cons
Using a server is by far the most comprehensive backup solution. It has the speed and convenience of local backups and the safety and minimum privacy risks that you can hardly find in online backup.
Some servers can also protect your data in case of ransomware attacks by keeping versions of your data via shadow copies. (I detailed that in this post on server data security.)
Those with lots of data and fast Internet connections can even use multiple servers at different locations and sync data between them to have automatic offsite backups. Or you can use your server as “cloud storage”—as an online backup solution—for your remote friends and family members.
Finally, a server can provide lots of storage space and different RAID options to deliver performance, redundancy, or both. You can also scale up the capacity as your data grows.
Setting up a backup server requires networking and computer know-how.
Additionally, the initial cost is higher than that of a single backup drive for local backup.
While you can turn a Wi-Fi router into a mini NAS server for relatively cheap, this solution lacks the significant advantages of a real NAS server, including redundancy, shadow copies, and more.
Who should use network backup?
Network storage solutions will benefit anyone with a major need for storage space and backups. If you have a large family, a good NAS server is in order.
Looking to dabble into network backup today? The related-post box below will give you additional resources and many hardware options.
Tend to your backups
Using any of the backup types above—online, local, or network—is better than having no backup.
Depending on your data type, you should use all of them when appropriate. I used cloud backup for critical data. After that, depending on the situation, I use network or local backup for essential data and everything else.
All of my desktops have a second internal drive for backup and are set to back up the entire system once a day.
If you’re worried about the backup drive running out of storage space, use a backup destination with enough space for at least 150 percent of your data. Most backup programs can auto-rotate, meaning they will delete the old backups when needed.
While most backup schemes are set-it-and-forget-it, it’s a good idea to check on your backups occasionally. You can do that by performing a test restoration or copying a file or two from your backups to ensure they have been in the intended state.
If your backup software has a verification function, you can set it to run after each backup job.
The takeaway
One moment, things are working fine, the next, your computer might not even boot up. Take my word for it. Don’t rely on data recovery unless it’s a recovery from a backup. This is especially true when your computer uses an SSD, which is the case for virtually all computers nowadays.
The point is this: Pick a storage device, get one when you can find a deal such as one of these during this time, and make those (extra) backups today and do that now!
Dong’s note: This post was first published on March 31, 2020, and last updated on March 31, 2025.
