Data Backup Software and Service

Backup all your data into one disc! Can you imagine that? Now, it comes true, because of the development of Blu-Ray Disc.

Blu-ray Disc (also known as Blu-ray or BD) is an optical disc storage media format. Its main uses are high-definition video and data storage. The disc has the same physical dimensions as a standard DVD or CD.

The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue laser (violet colored) used to read and write this type of disc. Because of its shorter wavelength (405 nm), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red (650 nm) laser. A dual layer Blu-ray Disc can store 50 GB, almost six times the capacity of a double-dual layer DVD (or more than 10 times if single-layer).

As the internet becomes more and more convenient, international trade among different countries becomes more and more popular. However, such kind of business mostly depends on the internet to communicate and computers to store vital information. Just imagine that, one day, your business contracts, emails, client database as well as some other important information were lost. Are you sure you can restore them and be back in business soon? Consequently, it is too late to regret that you did not have a back-up in advance.

However, we can not always avoid data loss. Sometimes, we delete some specific files by accident or failure; sometimes we lose data because of a hard disk failure as well as virus infection; sometimes our computer even will be stole by others.
Usually, we do simple backup such as file copy like copy and paste. This is fine as long as there are no problems with the file system on the original disk. But as soon as the copy in progress finds a file which can't be copied (for whatever reason, file system corruption say) the copy process stops. Leaving you with the time consuming and rather mundane task of trying to workout where and why the file copy stopped and what files remain to be copied.

Why You Need a Backup?

The hard disk is the main storage medium in personal computers. Unfortunately, hard disks do sometimes fail, or in computer lingo, crash. When a hard disk crashes, all of your data is in jeopardy. Sometimes information can be retrieved after a crash, but it is usually an aggravating, time-consuming procedure that may end in despair.

To backup your files simply means copying files to a second medium as a precaution in case the first medium fails. The medium used to make the copy can be any of a number of different storage choices including floppy disks, hard disks, Zip disks, CDs, or tapes.

Usually we encourage people to cut calories, sample all the food groups in their proper proportions, eat plenty of fiber, and back up their computer files frequently. Everyone agrees, but how many really follows?

Be proud of yourself if you bother yourself to back up data. Remember, though, if you copy your data to some where else on your hard drive, consider the consequences if your hard drive crashs. If you back up to an external hard drive or to removable media and store them next to your computer, what will happen if there’s a fire or flood?

I am sure that peope would hate themself to lose all the files and e-mails which are not backed up. That's what I experienced and that why I started evaluating free backup utilities that make it easier to copy and store valuable data.

The safest approach is to store file backups on safe media in a secure place other than where you work. One way to do that is to use the Internet. So today we review free Web-hosted backup and file storage services.

Practical Implications

High-end storage, which can track metadata on a per-sector basis, allows backup/restore operations to be more efficient by allowing changes to be tracked very closely and having backup operations deal with just changed data.

To be certain that a snapshot is consistent from an application’s point of view, it is essential to have the operating system (including file systems) and the application participate in the process of flushing the cache and temporarily suspending write operations while the snapshot is made. The volume shadow copy service shipping with Windows Server 2003 pro¬vides the needed operating system and file system support, as well as architecture for the needed application support. Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server are two important applications that will take advantage of this architecture.

It remains to be seen how quickly other vendors adopt and support the volume shadow copy architecture.