How Solid is Your Backup Plan?
How solid is your backup plan? Does it accomplish the 3-2-1 rule? Backups are critical and necessary. Using the 3-2-1 rule is essential to help eliminate the risk of data loss. What is the 3-2-1 rule? Simply stated, the 3-2-1 rule is:
3 Copies of your data
Stored on
2 Different types of media
With
1 Copy offsite
Let us study each part of this rule a little more in depth.
3 Copies of your data
By 3 copies, we mean that in addition to your original production data, you should have 2 more copies. Why would you need the second copy of the data you may ask? It is a simple matter of probability. The probability of not losing your data grows exponentially with the addition of the second copy. For ease of understanding, say that all the copies of your data carry the same probability of failure. For this example we will use 1/100.
If you have only 1 copy of your original data, the probability of losing both copies at the same time is:
1/100 * 1/100 = 1/10,000
Simply by adding another copy of the data, your probability jumps to:
1/100 * 1/100 *1/100 = 1/1,000,000
2 Different types of media
To take advantage of the probabilities we examined above; those copies need to be stored on different media. Storing your primary data and your backup data on the same RAID array would defeat the purpose of the backup. If your RAID has a catastrophic failure, you lose all the data! It is for this reason that you will want to use a separate storage device of some sort for your backup data. There are any number of media types you could use, some examples include external hard drives, flash drives, tape, etc.
1 Copy offsite
Personally, I would expand on this part of the rule. I would argue that it should be 1 copy offsite and off network. Meaning you should keep at least one copy of your data not on onsite and not on your company network. In case of a ransomware attack you would want that copy to be inaccessible if your admin credentials happen to be compromised. This also protects you against other types of disasters such as fire or natural disasters.
We offer several solutions to help you achieve a solid backup solution for your data! Contact us today to discuss your options.

