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Posts Tagged ‘Data Protection’

The realization about the need to prepare for safeguarding crucial data on your hard disk may come a little too late when the computer or the hard disk has crashed. Data loss could mean, for a small business, going out of business unfortunately, sometimes permanently. Rebuilding years of data is out of question. It is pertinent to know the whys and hows of data loss in order to understand data recovery better.

Important Causes of Data Loss
What you hoped will not occur, perhaps because of no reason, could always hit you hardest unless you are safeguarded against them. Computer running slowly could be because of spyware scrupulously installed could be working behind screens to destroy or transmit data to their masters eventually causing hard disk to crash. Others like electric storms, power surges, mechanical failures, fires & floods and user errors (sometimes in disregard of warnings) could affect your computer without any or sufficient warning.

You could also loose data because of sudden but unintended deleting of files or programs. Accidental disk format, virus attack, partition loss are some more causes for data loss.
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When it comes to hard disk recovery, the best method is to insure that you will never need it. Besides making frequent backups, the following measures will keep your system running smoothly.

Antivirus Protection

New viruses are invented every day, and system security is a concern for every business. Malicious software can damage your system to the point where it will not even boot up. The latest versions of Windows are the favorite targets of malicious programs such as spyware and viruses, and it is helpful to use 2 or more antivirus/anti-spyware programs to prevent destruction or theft of your data.

Spyware Scanner

The clues that spyware is on a computer include a barrage of pop-up ads, a hijacked browser,a sudden or even repeated change of your computer’s Internet home page, the appearance of a new toolbar or new screen icons, malfunctioning keys, random error messages, and most of all, sluggish computer performance. Any sytem with access to the internet is prone to this problem, but there is software to block spyware installation. In addition, make sure all employees using the office network do not download from unknown sites, and set your internet browser security at “Medium” or higher. Install individual firewalls to prevent uninvited users from accessing your network. A firewall blocks unauthorized access to your computer and will alert you if spyware already on your computer is sending information out. Purchase an anti-spyware program from a vendor you know and trust. Set it to read on a regular basis, at least weekly and if possible each time you run your computer. Delete any programs the anti-spyware program detects on your computer.

Computer Maintenance

The best way to avoid having to use file recovery software is to be sure that no corrupt data is stored on your computer. Companies like Norton sell disk optimization programs keep your network running at top speed, correct problem files and maximize the available space on your hard disk. Run disk optimization and anti-virus programs at least once a week.
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S2s Ltd is a UK provider of network consulting and implementation services
that needed data protection to ensure business continuity, even in the event of a server breakdown.
s2s was previously using disk-to-tape to back up all the various systems the business was running on.
Backing up and recovering data was not only a very complicated and time-consuming process, it was also very unreliable. When retrieving data
from the tapes, once they had been delivered back to s2s, a lot of the data from the tapes was irretrievable.
SecurStore’s online solution automatically transfers data offsite in real-time, eliminating the risk of having backups located onsite in case of a disaster or loss of data during transportation to an offsite location. Data is transmitted and stored offsite in a state of the art data centre on a reliable disk subsystem, which is in turn duplicated and backed up onto a second disk sub-system located apart from the primary disk sub-system.
Due to the nature of the business, s2s runs on a variety of operating systems. Most of its servers are Linux-based and some of them are Mac-based,
because many s2s employees use Apple Macintosh machines. It also has the obligatory Windows applications and operates with a SAN architecture. SecurStore also needed to take into account the fact that most of the s2s servers are virtualised and that s2s already had a NAS (network-attached storage) system in place.
The backup service uses many defense mechanisms, such as strong
authentication, data encryption, password protection and client and
system side log legitimate users at s2s to perform a data recovery
when needed.
SecurStore backs up the critical data of s2s (120GB) online on a continual basis, so that from the moment a server goes down, all the data can
be quickly retrieved online. The remaining less critical 80GB of data is either backed up to SecurStore’s Backup Lifecycle Management (BLM) offline service, or backed up by the outsourced provider.
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The first thing you need to do after a system crash has forced you to reformat your hard drive is to test your PC to make sure whatever caused the crash is still not around to destabilize your system. Once you know your PC is stable, you can begin the process of data recovery after formatting.

Do-It-Yourself Data Recovery After Formatting

The easiest way to get proof of your system’s stability is to upload some non-critical files, so that if they become corrupted you will not have lost anything. Try opening and closing the files, and as long as you do not get a message saying they have been corrupted, you can be fairly certain that your system is functioning normally and storing ant retrieving your data properly. You can move now move on to the data recovery after formatting process.
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