Quote:
Originally Posted by Merlin66
Gary,
Thanks.
Yes I suppose it was more Archive than back-up....
Interesting question...when does a back-up become an archive?
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A backup is a copy of data stored on a separate device that you keep
reserved for recovery.
An archive is for keeping data that you have decided will no longer change
but want to retain indefinitely. For example, old photos.
You should still backup an archive.
Historically archives were often kept on some form of slow tertiary storage,
such as tape or optical disk. There was thus a trade-off between the
cost of storing each byte of data against how long it would take to retrieve
it. However, since hard drive storage has become so cheap,
archives are now typically stored on hard drives as well.
Cloud storage, in Australia at least, in some ways mimics the days
of tertiary storage devices. The limited bandwidth is the problem.
Currently we have to suck data through very narrow straws to get it
to or from the Internet. If we all had gigabit per second fibre connections,
as the original NBN FTTP plan provided a future for, the distinction in
access speeds between your own local area network and the cloud
would have shrunk so the two would appear seamless.
In any case, whatever backup strategy you use, make sure you have
a minimum of two copies of any piece of important data and make sure that
the backup process is as automated as possible.
Good luck and I hope you can recover the family photos.