Necessity of Data Backup

Do you need to backup?

As each situation is unique, there can be no explicit answer if you need backups or not. Generally there are two main aspects that you need to keep in mind when considering the necessity of backups:

• Do you have important data that must be kept safe?
• Where are your important files stored?

Let's explain these three points in details by giving real world examples.

Do you have important data that must be kept safe?

There are cases when backing up is not a must. For example, Internet cafés have multiple computers that are accessed and used by dozens of people daily. In such public places, there is a common practice to regularly erase all files and programs downloaded or installed by visitors and roll the system back to some predefined state common for all PCs. In this case you don’t really need to make backups of any kind: even if some computer's hard drive fails, you can put it back into operation by simply cloning any other PC's HDD.

Where are your files stored, physically?

Many companies take advantage of the Remote Desktop technology which allows them to have a single powerful server to manage all employees work and numerous workstations that connect to it. Of course, in this case you don’t need to establish backup routines for each networked PC, but only for the server. The same applies to the situation when everybody works using network drives and stores no data on each specific computer.

So, you do need backup if you

1. Have a lot of data that you can't afford to lose in terms of time, money, or nerves.
2. Your files are physically kept on an unsecured storage media subject to possible theft, mechanical failure, or destruction by disasters.

If these two statements correctly characterize your case, then you definitely should consider establishing some backup routine. And as a first step, it is necessary to analyze data that you want to back up.