Data Backup and the 3 2 1 1 Backup Rule

Data Backup Is Important!

Data backup services from InfoTech Services Group

​Why is a backup strategy important? According to the University of Texas 94% of companies that suffer a catastrophic data loss do not survive. 43% of businesses do not reopen and 51% are out of business within two years. What’s your company’s backup strategy? Make sure your company follows the best backup practices to protect your valuable data. InfoTech Services Group, Inc. specializes in business computer network backup services. We suggest following the core strategy of the 3 2 1 1 backup rule. What is the 3 2 1 1 backup rule?

The 3 2 1 1 Backup Rule

3 copies of your data.
2 copies on separate media.
1 copy off-site
1 copy off-line.

3 Copies Of Your Data

In addition to the copy of your data that runs on production storage you should have at least two additional backup copies. This gives you a much greater chance of successful data recovery with three copies of your data. If there’s a 1/1000 chance of errors on each copy of your data then the probability of each copy having errors simultaneously is

1/10001/10001/1000 = 1,000,000,000

That’s a one in a billion chance that all three copies of your data will be unreadable – a very small percentage.

2 Copies On Separate Media

It’s important to have at least two copies of your data on separate media like disk AND tape. If all of your backups reside on the same physical hardware and the hardware fails, you will not be able to restore from backup.

1 Copy Off-Site

You should keep one copy off-site to protect against disasters like fire, earthquakes and floods. This copy of your data should be stored far enough away to avoid the impact of any local disaster.

1 Copy Off-Line

It’s important to have at least one copy off-line. This off-line copy protects you against ransomware. Even if you have a copy off-site but still online, ransomware could encrypt all of your on-line backups and you will not be able to recover. Tape is still one of the most cost effective ways to keep your data off-line. An LTO8 tape can natively store 11 TB of data.

Auditing your Backup

It’s a good idea to regularly audit your backup environment before you have to perform a restore. Here are items to consider when auditing your backup.

Ensure All Necessary Data Backed Up

Verify that all production data is backed up. If a server exists it should be backed up. Be sure that any new servers are added to the backup rotation and any retired servers are taken out of the backup rotation.

What is the backup schedule? How often does the backup run? It should be run at least once a day or more often for critical servers. More about the data backup rule at Network World.

We recommend regular restores of your test environment to ensure your data is properly backed up. You don’t want to find out that your backups are corrupted when you need to perform a data restore. Veeam’s SureBackup Feature in their Enterprise and Enterprise Plus versions automatically verifies the integrity of the backup. It runs a malware scan on VM data, verifies it can start the VM in a protected environment and optionally runs a Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) on the data to ensure the backup data is valid.

Data Backup Summary

In our opinion you can never be too careful with backups. Having a robust backup strategy ensures you can recover from a data disaster. For more information on creating a customized backup strategy for your company please send an email to helpo@techismything.com. We provide IT Support and Network backup services for businesses, organizations and agencies in Los Angeles CA.

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