How Often to Make a Backup and Types of Backups are Available

You have undoubtedly heard the term backup thousands of times, but do you know what its function is precise? Performing a regular backup on company computers is essential to safeguard information. 

What is Backup?

A backup is a tool that allows you to duplicate the information from one medium or one computer to another so that the data can be saved and recovered in case of losing it.

The main objective of the backup is to safeguard the information so that, in the event of data theft, user errors, faulty software or any other unforeseen event that leads to data loss, it can recover it in the shortest time possible. 

Offsite-Backup Process

Many companies still don’t back up their computers regularly, which can have serious consequences. Not having updated backup copies can cause the loss of confidential and essential information for the normal development of the business activity.  

How Often to Make a Backup?

All companies should back up their computers at least once a week, but this will depend on the type of company information and how you work with it. 

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If a company works with sensitive data that is updated daily, you should consider making a daily backup or even several dailies. If these copies are not made regularly, we will be putting the entire company at risk. 

Backup Types

But there are several types of backup, and depending on the data or information that we want to store in our company, we must use one or the other. 

Variants On Cloud-Backup

Complete Backup

As the name indicates, a complete backup is one where all the files and folders that we select are saved. 

This type of backup is complete, and we can recover all the information in case of loss, but they take up a lot of space. This means that if we make backup copies daily, we must have support with a large capacity to make them. 

As they are backups with a lot of information, they will take time to process and, therefore, it will take a long time to run them, so it is helpful to combine them with other types of copies that store specific information of relevance. 

Differential Backup

Differential backups are made only of the data modified and updated in the last period. This means that the backup will only save data different from what was in the last backup, taking up much less space than the full backup. 

Incremental Backup

Incremental backups are made from a complete backup; the last backup made is updated with the new data that has not been saved up to now. 

This type of copy will be done much faster because it only saves the new information and does not reprocess all the data on the computer. 

Mirror Backup

This type of copy saves precisely what is on the computer in real-time, so if we add a file, it will save it, but it will also disappear from the copy if we delete it. For this reason, you have to be careful and know when it is convenient to use this backup. 

Full Synthetic Backup

The full synthetic copy is created through a full backup and then modifies that file with one or more incremental copies. 

This type of backup allows you to synthesize the data, hence the name, so you don’t have to make full backups that take too much space and time. 

What Type of Backup to Choose?

The best way to ensure that your company’s data is protected and that you can recover it as quickly as possible is to combine different types of backup. In this way, we will be able to make updated backup copies without large media that hold so much information. 

Computer-Backup

However, the strategy to follow will depend on the type of company. If it is a large business that works with thousands of data daily, you will need to combine different copies to preserve the information. Still, on the other hand, if it is a small company, the strategy to follow may be different. 

Here are three examples of strategies: 

• Make a Complete Copy Regularly
• Perform a full backup weekly and a differential backup daily.
• Perform a full backup weekly and an incremental backup daily.

In addition to knowing how to choose what type of backup is best suited to your company, you should know how to store it. For this reason, the cybersecurity specialists at Avansis recommend: 

1. Save three backup copies on different media with updated information.
2. Make a local backup of essential information.
3. Save a copy in a different place from where the others are (either on a computer or in the cloud).
4. Backup copies allow companies to secure their information and recover it in case it is compromised or stolen.

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