Backing up » History » Version 1

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Steve Welburn, 2012-08-22 02:29 PM


Backing up

Why back up your data ?

  • Hard disks die
  • Portable devices can be lost or broken
  • Disasters happen

How to back up data

The core principle is that backup copies of data should be stored in a different location to the main copy.

If you delete your local copy of the data then the primary copy will be the original backup... is that copy backed up anywhere ?

Suitable locations for backups are:
  • A firesafe
  • A network copy
    • An network drive e.g. provided by the institution
    • Internet storage (in the cloud)
    • A data repository - this could be a public thematic / institutional repository for publishing completed research datasets, or an internal repository for archiving datasets during research