Considering that I just completed a post discussing how important it is to prepare your site properly and backup files prior to upgrading your blogs installation of WordPress I thought it might be interesting to tell you about an article that discusses the history of backup.
Data can easily be corrupted when new software is installed, when a virus is introduced to the system or when there is a power failure or power surge. A mangled line of code due to any of the above causes or any of the multitude of other sources of corrupt data can cause companies to lose sales and man power hours during the time it takes to find the source of the problem. Likewise, corrupt data on a home computer can cause a lot of woe too.
That’s why regularly backing up data is so important. A backup is essentially a copy of working files or intact data. Did you know that some of the first backups were done on either big reels of magnetic tape, paper or paper tape? Those first backups occurred in the 1950’s.
We’ve come a long way since then!
While it’s true that some backups are still done on tape backup most data backups now occur on hard drives, flash hard drives, CDs and DVDs and even via network.
The article that I referred to earlier, The History of Backup, discusses how backup has evolved and how the equipment and gadgets that we use to perform data backup have changed over the years.
It’s actually quite an interesting article. You can see how demand for better data backup spurred the invention of a wide variety of data backup devices and how as the demand rose the price of this technology eventually fell into reasonably inexpensive products that even the average home computer user can afford.
It really is amazing how far we’ve come with all technology. And backup systems are no exception. Now we can easily have redundant, reliable backups, done remotely, with version history. What’s cooler than that?
Well for one thing it would be cooler NOT needing to do backups:)
But it’s really great the process became so much easier over the years.
BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP!!! Take this from somebody who had to learn it the hard way a FEW times. Ive had hard-drives crash, and disks corrupt. Backup frequently and make two copies!!
In all these almost 60 years, something fundamental has changed : the definition and scope of backup. Back then, they backed up only the most needed data, because they didn’t have too many consumables, and because it was a cumbersome process to attend.
Now we have too much data; it overflows; back it up all, and soon you will run out of your budget. So filtering and prioritisation come first.
As with any aspect of computer science, the history of backup does tell a story of our beliefs, of our conduct codes in society ..
the way data is moving to online storage it won’t be long before backing up is a thing of the past. just hit undo!
I’m with s i –
Before you know it, backups won’t even be backups. I remember back to the DOS era when a backup of WordPerfect just meant having enough 5 1/4 floppies…