Three Ways to Back Up Your Data with IT Support in Sacramento

Data loss can cripple a company’s future, and our IT support team in Sacramento helps businesses of all sizes in backing up critical data. Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, the use of emergency backups has become increasingly important. Depending on your need, there are three ways to backup vital data and prevent any loss of information:

1. Full Backup

Using a full backup is one of the most common and best ways an IT support team can backup critical data and information. How does a full backup work? A full backup completely backs up all of the available files and folders. Usually, a company will initially use a full backup and then follow it with incremental or differential backups in the future. It’s also a good idea to do a full backup either weekly or monthly depending on your business needs. The main advantage of a full backup is the ability to restore lost files quickly, as all of the available data will be restored. On the other hand, there are a few disadvantages with using a full backup. First, it can be very time-consuming, and it’s a good idea only to use a full backup after office hours to minimize the risk of interrupting daily work activities. Additionally, storage space is also needed because you are essentially storing two sets of the same files and folders. Despite these issues, a full backup is very beneficial and critical to the recovery of any lost data.

2. Incremental Backup

An incremental backup only backs up the files that have recently changed. For example, if the IT support team in Sacramento made a full backup on Monday night, an incremental backup can be performed on Wednesday night to back up files that have changed within the last two days. Incremental backups are much quicker and are an excellent way to reduce the amount of time between backups. Besides being much faster, less storage space is also needed. Although it has many advantages, an incremental backup does have a few disadvantages. For example, it will take longer to restore a particular file because it must search through multiple backup sets. Recovery can also be incomplete if any of the backups fail to load, whether it was full or incremental. Overall, an incremental backup is a safe and secure method to protect valuable data.

3. Differential Backup

A differential backup is very similar to an incremental backup except that it’s a cumulative process. In other words, it continually makes a backup for each day that any files changed. This method uses the least amount of storage space and allows the retention of several versions of each file. The main disadvantage of a differential backup is that it takes longer to recover data and it’s a slower process compared to an incremental backup.

As you can see, companies have a variety of ways to backup critical documents and files. Depending on your needs, you may choose to have a full backup followed by an incremental or differential backup on a weekly or monthly basis. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at Noverus Innovations, Inc., the number one IT support company in the Sacramento area.