Data backup

Data backup is one of the most important step for maintaining the security of important data. very often computer users have an unerring faith in computer storage media. there are regular instances of people entrusting their only copy of a thesis or dissertation to single floppy disk. it is a fact that all forms of magnetic media degrade over time and will ultimately fail. there is far less certainity as to when a disk will fail or what the consequences might be. therefore you should save your work regularly and not to the same storage devce. backup frequency depends upon how much data you have and how regularly it changes. as a guideline, if you could not bare to loose something, it is time to make a copy. choosing an alternative location is eminently sensible or your backup will suffer the same demise as the original. whatever else may happen, if your data is kept on a media other than the hard disk of your computer you will be able to recover it.

In academic environment where there is a great deal of exchanging data and a very mobile user populaton computer viruses are a very real danger. Data loss through virus infections is very common in school, colleges and universities. Looking After the Hardware normally a new machine will be under warranty for a year after the date of purchase. after this warranty expires any hardware repairs are likely to be costly. Many of the companies selling computer systems offer extended warranty schemes which may be worth considering after careful investigation. Looking After the Data: there are three basic ways of ensuring that even if the hardware fails, you will still be able to access yur data. 1. Backup all data that is iportant to you. This is the most inportant step in securing your data. Keep more than one copy. ensure that the backup data is free from corruption. 2. Run Anti-Virus software, Keep the software up-to-date. Test your hard disk, floppies and all backups regularly. 3. Where you are dealing with sensitive data, make sure that the data is password protected/encrypted and not readily available to mailcious abuse.