Backing up involves having your data on two or more storage devices so that in the event of the failure of a storage device you still have your data. Having a good backup solution is important if you have data you value as HDD (hard disk drives), SSD (solid state drives) and USB flash drives can fail and cause you to lose your data.
Types of backup
- External HDD, SSD or flash drive, directly connected to your computer, usually via USB. Which storage option you should choose depends on your budget, required capacity, required speed, required durability and required portability. Note that disconnecting your storage device unsafely can cause data loss.
- In the case of using external HDD you can have two HDD in the one device in a level 1 RAID (mirroring) where the content of each drive is identical so that if one fails the other still has the data. As of now the largest available HDD storage capacity is 32TB. HDD are more prone to knocks and drops, especially while turned on, because they have moving parts inside them.
- Because they have no moving parts, SSD are better able to survive drops and knocks without data loss. They are also smaller, faster and more expensive. The largest capacity available in an external SSD is 8TB. The largest capacity available in an internal SSD is 30.72TB but it is very expensive. It is possible to put an internal SSD in an external enclosure and connect it to the computer via USB but, in part because of the huge number of possible combinations this has not been as well tested and I suspect there may be problems. Another reason I have concerns about combining an internal SSD with an external enclosure is simply that if it worked well then I would have thought it would be done as a single unit. Another downside is failure after a certain amount of writing, which is not so much of a problem these days, but it varies from brand to brand.
- As they use similar technology to SSD, USB flash drives also have limited writing they can do but, like with SSD, with modern ones this will probably not cause problems. They also have no moving parts which means dropping them or knocking them will probably not cause problems. In terms of speed, USB flash drive can range from slower than HDD to almost as fast as an SSD, depending on which one you get. USB flash drives are also smaller and have no cable which makes them more portable and convenient. Currently the largest capacity USB flash drive I am aware of is 2TB. With a storage device that you can plug into and unplug from your computer there is also of course the benefit of portability.
- NAS (network attached storage) is where you have one or more HDD or SSD inside a NAS device which is connected to your LAN (local area network), usually via an Ethernet cable (network cable) to your router. Like with external HDD connected directly to a computer via USB you can have two or more in a level 1 RAID so that the contents of each HDD is the same so that if one fails you still have all the data. One advantage of using a NAS is that the data from all computers on the LAN can be backed up easily. Another advantage of NAS is that the data can be shared easily with all computers on the LAN. Another advantage to NAS is you can easily share data over the Internet.
- Cloud/Internet storage is where you backup to one or more remote servers on the Internet. This makes it convenient and means you can access your data from anywhere with an Internet connection. The speed of this can depend on your Internet connection and it is most likely the slowest option. Another potential downside is you are trusting someone else with your data.
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