Is Remote, Online Data Storage Really Necessary?

Most business owners today would wind up in “rubber rooms” in a hurry were it not for their Information Technology (IT) people. How many CEOs out there actually speak or understand “Techie” or the reasons why they need what IT says they need?

No one’s challenging the importance or value of a good IT Department in today’s business world – but top management really should understand at least the basic reasons IT makes the choices and decisions it makes. So, in plain English, here’s why online, offsite data storage should be given serious thought.

Consider how crippling (and painful) would it be if your business suddenly lost all its files. Customer data … customer orders … your own business data…. Just imagining what it would be like is enough to send most business owners into a panic – and rightfully so. Yet many (if not most) businesses put their commercial lives at risk online every single day — and aren’t even aware of doing so.

In a business sense, if in no other, ignorance most definitely is not bliss. With the explosion of commerce on the internet, competition is fiercer than it has been ever before in history. In today’s business climate, it’s absolutely essential that your online business operate without fail day and night, every day of the year — because if error messages or downed servers or other glitches greet potential customers when they access your site, your many competitors are just a simple mouse-click away, ready and eager to snatch them out of your hands.

Your every day, online dealings with customers are conducted with the help of databases on your own servers, on your own premises, supplying relevant customer and business information. Any significant or recurring glitch in this service instantaneously translates to poor customer relations, loss of business and a sullied business reputation. Any way you look at it, loss or corruption of customer data is going to cost your business time and money – whether it’s in lost or inaccurate sales or in server downtime to find and fix the errors.

Remote, offsite backup essentially functions in the same way regular tape backups do – but with one major – and important – difference. Instead of sending backups to a tape or to another drive attached to your on-site server, data is sent to another computer safely off-site. No one has to remember to do it, either; it’s automatically done, each and every day.

Even if you already utilize a tape backup system, incorporating a remote backup system as well makes sound business sense. Critical files (such as customer contacts, billing data, client databases, etc.) can be kept on the remote backup system. Your tape system then can be used to create a full backup of the system just once a month or so. Doing this, your on-site tapes will last longer – and the drive will require less maintenance – while the remote backup gives you quick and easy retrieval of critical files and databases as needed.

With online backup, smooth functioning of online transactions supplying crucial customer and business information is assured. A good remote online backup service keeps your data safe and secure in remote locations and allows you to access, update, and recover important files and documents without your business suffering downtime or lost customers.

You can never be too prepared when disaster strikes. Protect yourself from data loss with online backup from Global Data Vault. Avoid downtime, revenue loss and angry customers with remote backup services from Global Data Vault. http://www.globaldatavault.com

System Restore Won’t Work – Take One Step to Protect Your Data

When you have a Windows XP system and your system restore won’t work, don’t worry. It could be something small. Have you thought about how a system restore works? Do you understand what it does? How should you really protect your data? Computers work in funny ways and if we are not sure what they are doing how can we truly protect ourselves. It is evident that more and more people are using computers and digital media but are not giving much thought to how they will backup their systems.

System Restore is a Windows XP system function that restores critical Operating System Files and registry entries back to their original state. It takes a snap shot of key files and the registry for restoring after an application install or driver install. A system restore gives you the ability to do a system restore to an earlier time. The resotre is only specific to those critical operating system files and registry keys. It does not provide you data protection for your regular day to day files or your important files. It won’t backup your mp3′s or your photos of your last vacation. It is merely there for assistance if you install something that doesn’t work right or causes problems with your Windows installation.

Another problem is when you want to restore your system to an earlier time in its entirety. It makes it difficult if you are just relying on system restore to do the job. Like I said system restore is a just in case measure for your Operating System’s important files and key registry areas. It could care less about your personal files. You will need to perform regular backups and full backups of your system if you want to restore your system to an earlier time in its entirety. It takes a little effort to set up but will be worth it in the end. Once you learn what to do and how to do it the backup and restore process will be easy.

Imagine just a few years ago storage was hard to come by because of its cost. Now storage is so cheap it makes sense to start backing up your computer regularly to external hard drives. It makes sense to learn how to implement a home backup system or plan that is automated and that you can setup and forget it until you need. The biggest problem people face today is they never have the backup when they need it. They always think about backing up their systems after a loss of data has happened.

Digital Data is growning by the hour as we move forward with technology and innovation. We are digitizing books, music, and pictures every minute. We, as computer users, must learn to backup our data often and systematize it. You never know when the mechanical hard drive will go bad. You never know when your electronics may get zapped. We must protect our investments of data that we have spent time collecting. It should be like brushing your teeth, done every day.

Don’t wait or put off the ultimate in data protection. Do your backup today so that you can be sure you will have it when you need to restore to an earlier time or if system restore is not working. Be prepared.

Imagine having the ability to schedule a backup and walk away knowing your data is being protected nightly.

http://www.dontloseyourfiles.com

Learn how to perform a restore to an earlier time, find out how to backup files, and find out how to protect your data.

Online Data Storage Or Tape Backup – What’s Better?

There’s a certain appeal, granted, to having all your business data – customer files, order information, organizational data – right there on tape, disc or zip drive on your own servers in your own offices or stored nearby.

Media based technologies once were, in fact, the most popular means for backing up crucial business data. However, these solutions have an escalating total cost of ownership and simply don’t provide the most secure data protection available today. As the business’ data grows, additional tapes, zip disks and CDs must be purchased, driving up equipment and maintenance costs.

And consider this….

What if there’s a fire? What if the fire, itself, is put out before much damage is done, but the sprinkler systems have gone off, drenching your IT facility along with everything else? What if a Trojan invades your servers? What if any one of dozens of all-too-common disasters strike and obliterate your carefully backed up business files in an instant?

If your media-based backup systems are all you’re relying on and something happens to damage or destroy them, your business is instantly up the proverbial creek without a paddle. And beyond the physical risk of sole reliance upon that kind of backup, the fact is that it’s more expensive, as well.

At first glance, media backups may seem to be cheaper, but there are hidden costs and hassles in using them that aren’t present with – aren’t even a consideration in – a remote, online backup system.

With media-based backups, an employee (or two or three) must physically see to the backup, and as well as time spent doing so there is the very real fact that human beings make human errors. Beyond that, the media files have to be physically transported to and from an off-site storage area … the storage area, itself, must be leased … the recovery process is unreliable, as well as time- and labor-intensive … restoring down to a single-file level can be very challenging … and, finally, you have no way of knowing whether data was accurately backed up.

With an online data backup system, there’s no personnel (and therefore no human error or salaried time) involved … it gets your data safely stored offsite for you, without anyone having to carry it there … you can schedule automatic backups for the middle of the night … you can restore a single file or an entire entry with just a couple of mouse clicks … you have access to at least twice as many (often more) historical versions of your data files … and you are automatically notified if there is any kind of glitch in the backup process.

Many companies today are opting to use both a tape/zip/CD backup and a remote backup system, relegating their media-based systems to performing monthly backups and utilizing the remote system for daily data backups. This is proving to be a very cost-effective approach in terms of employee costs and wear and tear on tapes and server hardware, and one well worth considering in the ever-changing world of online commerce.

You can never be too prepared when disaster strikes. Protect yourself from data loss with online backup from Global Data Vault. Avoid downtime, revenue loss and angry customers with remote backup services from Global Data Vault. http://www.globaldatavault.com

How To Recover Data Lost From Viruses, Power Surges, And More

Many of us work on computers these days. The work we do is important and it is always at risk. The many risks could include viruses, power surges, thunderstorms, natural disasters, human mistakes, and hackers. These things are real and we don’t think they will ever happen to us. Our computer work every day and we never expect anything to go wrong. But then one day it happens! Lightening strikes and the power goes out just as you are finishing something you just can’t live without and can’t redo! It is a hard lesson learned too late. But not too late to do better the next time.

You should back up your files just to be sure you don’t lose anything. If the hard drive does fail, a data recovery system id a great option to keep in mind. If your program begins to do weird things, shut the computer down right away to avoid losing anything.

Your hard drive may be destroyed in time if you continue. It is better to be safe than sorry. If you do lose data, try not to repair the hard drive yourself unless you are an expert at it. Instead enlist the aid of a professional data recovery service. You could just ruin things if you try to do it yourself. All of your data could be lost and that wouldn’t be worth it. Recovering data takes time, special tools and a clean place.

If you try to do this yourself you could just make it all worse. With the software available, you may think that you can just do it yourself. That would be very risky. You may do more damage than good. Just think of the cost of replacing your whole hard drive. Your best bet would be to contact a data recovery service. You can rest assured that your computer will be well taken care of. If the company does ruin your computer, they would be obliged to replace it. However, this rarely happens. They are very skilled and can recover whatever data you have lost. What happens if there is just nothing to be done about your hard drive? Should this occur you might just have to buy a new hard drive.

One special lesson learned would be to always back up your data and save as you go. That way if something went wrong you would be covered. One great suggestion you could try, would be to copy your data to a disk. You may never know when your hard drive may be completely destroyed. Some people keep their computer plugged into a power strip. That way if there is a power surge or outage the computer is shut down and data saved. Computers are great and we can’t live without them. So we must learn to respect how to use them.

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach Florida. Find more about this as data recovery at http://www.turbocomputerrepair.com

How To Recover Documents, Files, And Photos

We have all lost items while working on the computer by accidentally deleting them or someone lost them for you. This can be very frustrating, as some files are very important to our livelihood. Or maybe just important because they are personal. If you have looked everywhere, even the Recycle Bin, the following are hints and ideas to help you. It would be helpful to try them.

Let’s start with lost files, which may still be on the disk. Don’t give up hope. It is important to try all of you options. Use a tool such as File Recover or Uneraser to retrieve it. It is easy to use. Here are several ideas to get that file back intact. With a broken up disk and lost items from a file, the recovery software will quite likely not know what to do. The more simple the file, the better chance of recovery. For the most difficult recovery jobs, Partition Recovery is what we have found to be the best. Better yet is a real human to help you out, a data recovery specialist. These angels are trained at putting back together the pieces of files. If your data were valuable, it would be worth it to enlist their aid. It will cost a little more, but you will be glad you called for their help.

Now let’s talk a little bit about recovering photos that you just can’t find. You will need to know what you are looking for and how it is saved. Is it saved in JPEG maybe? You need to find out. Here again you will need recovery software that is compatible with your file. For digital images you can use Flash Recovery however you cannot use this for those burned on you CD.

To recover Microsoft Office documents a great system to try is DOC Regenerator. You can try this free of charge. That way you can determine if the recovery works for you. before you spend the money on it. To repair a damaged Office document we recommend Advanced Word Repair or Advanced Excel Repair.

Because emails are not saved as individual files, these ideas do not work for them. Emails can only be recovered by normal file recovery ways if the entire file has been lost or deleted. A lost email may have been moved to a special folder if you have set this up. This folder allows you to recover anything lost. Emails can be recovered using unique email recovery software. Once again you need to acquire an email recovery system specialized for you software. Outlook Express Repair if very good and anyone can figure it out. If you have Microsoft Outlook files you will need to get Advanced Outlook Repair which cost more. But it is worth it.
Here you have been given different options to help you out. Most of all seek help if you need it.

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach Florida. Find more about this as computer repair explained at http://www.turbocomputerrepair.com