Posts Tagged ‘Software Applications’

A Definition of Data Recovery for the Average Net Surfer

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

James Fohl is a contributor at Free-backup.info — the home of the popular tool for personal online backup — Back2zip. This article can be found at http://free-backup.info/a-definition-of-data-recovery-for-the-average-net-surfer.html

Curious about data recovery?

Have you ever wondered what data recovery actually is? To answer this question, it is necessary to understand the basis of the need for data recovery. Have you ever lost data on your computer system? By data, of course I mean all of your important files that you have been saving over the years; photos, word documents, even your impressive MP3 collection. And by ‘lost’ I mean that the data was deleted from your hard disk, or lost due to a hard drive failure. In any case, it’s data that you wish you could have saved, but ultimately it’s gone.

Most computer users believe that once their data is lost, its lost forever. They often reload their system software and forget about data recovery, because most home users fail to even acknowledge the existence of the possibility of data recovery. However businesses, as well as many smart technical individuals have discovered many ways of recovering their lost data via processes simply known as data recovery.

Data recovery isn’t as difficult as it may sound.

Services are offered by a wide variety of specialized individuals, as well as in the form of many software applications. While it may sound confusing, it is very easy to tell whether you are in the need of software to assist you in your data recovery, or if you require a specialized individual to help you with your recovery efforts. With either case, it is possible to retrieve your ‘lost’ data, and perhaps save you from the assorted problems that would be sure to arise if you had indeed lost your data, and failed to make any attempt at a recovery effort.

When is data recovery software used?

Data recovery software is often used whenever files are deleted from a computer hard drive, either by fault of the user or by automated actions initiated by the computer’s software. The files may have been deleted from within your system, however by using the correct software it is possible to retrieve this deleted data. In the past few years, many advancements have been made in the development of this software. Data recovery software is targeted towards everyone, with emphasis on the home user and small businesses.

When is a data recovery specialist needed?

Data recovery specialists are required whenever your data has been corrupted due to a failure of your hard drive. It is possible for data recovery specialists to actually extract data and other information from a hard drive that is even in non working condition. This practice is usually targeted towards large businesses, or individuals who have a high demand for their lost data.

Data recovery solutions allows you to have faith in your computer.

With both data recovery specialists, and specialized software available to help retrieve your lost data, the next time you loose important data you will have options available to you that will help you get your data back. From now on, you have options to retrieve your data, instead of just forgetting about it and moving on.

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Backup Software Functions

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

Andrew Whitehead is a contributor at Free-backup.info — the home of the popular Amazon S3 based tool for online file backup — Back2zip. This article can be found at http://free-backup.info/backup-software-functions.html

Backup Software Functions

It’s probably true to say that most backup software applications available will do a reasonable job of making a backup. That does not mean that all backup software is created equal, and choosing the one that suits your requirements is worth spending a bit of time and effort on. Try to look deeper than the bells and whistles of the interface to see if the software offers flexible operation with all the functions you need.

Weigh the backup software’s functions against your backup needs. Do you want to backup only critical files, or are you backing up your whole operating system too? Are you backing up one or two stand alone desktop PCs or a network of them? Do you want to take images of the hard drive?

Backup Software Also Restores!

All too often, shoppers evaluating backup software give lots of attention to the backup process, and very little to how fast and how easy it is to restore the system after it has gone down. This is understandable considering that backups may be a nightly operation, but it is when you need to restore a downed system that your backup software really justifies its cost. You want this process to be as fast and as painless as possible.

File-by-File Backup Software, Imaging, or Both?

To be competitive in today’s market, backup software must offer both the more traditional file-by-file backup and “imaging” technology. An organization gets the best of both worlds by having both approaches available

In a file-by-file backup, the software goes through the operating system with guaranteed file integrity, while in an image backup, it bypasses the operating system and does a bit level backup of a hard drive. This is perfect for quickly restoring a failed hard drive, but file-by-file is better for backing up key files, especially complex ones such as a relational database.

Backup Software Compression

Not all backup software offers you file compression, but yours should as uncompressed backup files take up a lot more storage space, and this becomes increasingly significant as your collection of backup files grows.

Flexibility of Backup Software

Your backup software should offer you the options of manual backups or automatic scheduling, and both full and incremental backups. Another useful feature that is becoming more common is the ability to run backups in the background without interfering with other applications. This allows you to run backups whenever you want without waiting for downtime.

Backup Media Compatibility

Where do you intend to store your backup files? Make sure that your backup software allows easy transfer to a variety of media: CDs, external hard drive, tape drives etc. so that you have the flexibility to change your media in the future.

User Friendly Backup Software

Having Backup software that is so difficult and unfriendly that people won’t use it is almost as bad as no backup software at all. Choose backup software that has a simple, friendly, intuitive interface and provides logs that don’t need a manual and an IT degree to decipher.

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