Why Off-Site Backup?

Many people think safes protect their belongings from destruction in a fire. They don't. Safes were meant to secure objects from theft, not fire. During a fire, paper will burn and plastic CDs or tapes will melt inside a safe as much as they will outside. Would your data survive if your office building or house was destroyed?

Why CDs and DVDs are not Suitable for Long-Term Backup

Even discounting the chances of fire or theft, CDs and DVDs make for very unsafe and unsecure ways of backing up your information. Here is why:

• All CDs and DVDs hold their data in a polycarbonate layer on the underside of the disk. But the polycarbonate layer eventually oxidises, corrupting your information. NB: This always happens because of the materials from which the disk is made -- there are no exceptions.
• Some CDs and DVDs can contract a fungus if left in warm, humid conditions. Once contracted, it is just a matter of time until the fungus eats the polycarbonate, allowing for rapid oxidisation of the reflective material in the disk.
• All CDs and DVDs are not created equally. The cheaper the medium, the greater the chance of data corrupting prematurely. Even quality brands are known to corrupt data prematurely.
• CDs and DVDs are known to corrupt data within two years of being made. Any data storage system should be able to hold information for longer than two years. For some professionals, data storage requirements extend as much as ten years.

Why Tape Archives are not Suitable for Long-Term Backup

Tape archives have been the mainstay of short-term backup facilities for years. Because of this, some people have tried using them for long-term storage. The results threaten disaster.

Tape archives are not intended to keep data for long periods of time. The manufacturers of archival tapes recommend not using them for more than one year. They further say that the tapes should be swapped out after six months. Tape archives then are not reliable media for storage past the six month mark.

The Only Long-Term Storage Solution: A Remote Hard Disk

The only commonly available storage device known to hold data for years without corruption is the computer hard disk. The most secure way to ensure that such a backup is safe from fire and secure from theft is to keep it off-site, in a locked-down facility.

Secure off-site backup ensures that your data will be safe even if your place of business or your home is destroyed by fire or flood. Unfortunately, this is not like the RAC, where you can join up after you break down. If you lose your on-site data and have no off-site backup, you can lose your business.

Achieve Backup and Secure Systems offers the most secure backup system available for non-military purposes. Approved by the FSA, the system we use is the same as that used by Price Waterhousecooper, IBM, and other multinationals. Some of the features of this state-of-the-art system are:

• Data stored in not one but two, mirrored archive facilities. If one data centre should suffer a power outage or natural disaster such as fire or flood, the other data centre keeps your data available to you but secure from others.
• End-to-end, 128-bit encryption for file transfers from your computer to your file archive.
• Storage of the data after the files are encrypted with 448-bit Blowfish, using a key and passphrase combination which only you have. If you forget it or misplace it, all of your data will be lost. Neither the data centre nor the storage service personnel will be able to access your security codes.
• Data is retrieved in the same 448-bit encrypted format used in storing it and then encrypted on your computer. The sun will burn out before someone could crack open your data.

We at Achieve Backup and Secure Systems can help to secure the future of your business. Phone us today.

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