A complete guide to backup software
This article reviews a modern tool that can help keep your important data safe and not to lose it in case of hardware or software failures - backup software. Probably, everyone who uses PC has ever faced the problem when his hard drive is crashed, the virus damages some very important data or he or she just accidentally deletes some important document. None of these events will be considered a problem if you use backup software and have a reserve copy of all the important information.
First of all, the aims of using Windows backup software will be discussed. Many people think that there is no need of such programs, as all the backup operations may be performed manually without purchasing something. However, people with this opinion often make a mistake. The problem is that you don't see positive results of performing backups immediately. It's possible that you will not see them at all - you only feel these positive results in case of a data loss. Without seeing the result, users often begin to postpone their backups and make them not as frequently as needed. In the end, this process comes to making no backups at all. As a final result, they face a data loss event and have no reserve copy to restore their data. In contrast to the described method, backup software only requires to be set up once and then never forgets about performing your backups properly and on time.
There are a lot of storage devices available to keep reserve copies on. There are hard drive backup software, server backup software, online backup software and lots of other variants. The storage media can be divided into two categories: local and remote. Local includes hard drive, portable hard drives, CD's, DVD's, flash cards, etc. Remote backup requires uploading the data to a server via the Internet. There are also remote backup services that offer storing the data on specially protected servers. The use of local storage media is usually faster, but it can be damaged in case of natural disasters like fire or flood. There is backup software for all possible kinds of media - the program can support all of them or can be specially designed for one kind, for example, for online backup software.
The other important thing is support of different backup sources. One of the objectives of using backup software is automatic search of the items to be backed up. Usually, people need to back up their Outlook messages, browser favorites, some programs settings, Windows registry, etc. Advanced users may need to back up ODBC databases, Lotus Notes databases and other data that is rarely needed for home usage. All these sources may be automatically found by backup software and it's often even not required to stop using them to perform a backup. It's possible to find cost-effective variant for any combination of supported backup sources.
All things considered, backup software is a very powerful tool to keep your data safe and never face a disastrous problem called data loss. The price varies from $0 to more than $1000 and you will surely find the variant you need. A typical backup solution for home usage costs around $40, which is nothing in comparison to possible data loss consequences.
We also recommend you to see the following pages about Home Backup Software, Enterprise Backup Software.
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