Data Recovery

You may have heard of SkyDrive but did not know what exactly it is or how to use it. With this article you will learn more about it!

What is it?

Firstly, SkyDrive is an online storage by Microsoft to store your data such as Office documents, Photos and a lot more as long as it does not excess 50MB. SkyDrive offers all users a tremendous 25GB of storage space for free. You can share and edit your files on the cloud with this online storage. This is especially useful if you need to access your files on several computer systems, be it Mac or Windows. In other word, you can access your files anytime, anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. Not only can you access the files you have uploaded, you can set and share files with your friends and family as well (even if they don’t have a Windows ID).  Captions and comments can be made to files by you or the viewers.

How to use it?

Sounds great right? All you have to do is login to http://skydrive.live.com using your Windows Live ID to access SkyDrive. Drag and drop to upload and edit files from your browsers. A light version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint are available on the site to allow you to upload, create, edit, and share your Microsoft documents. Alternatively, you can also upload straight to SkyDrive via Microsoft Office 2010 (File->Save & Send ->Save to Web). To make retrieving of files even easier for you, the whole directory can also be downloaded as a .zip compressed file (Under the “More” dropdown menu).

SkyDrive’s online storage opens up a whole lot of opportunity for you. As 25GB of storage are provided to you and it is almost impossible to finish using it, why not treat it as a storage area to back up your files and data? With SkyDrive there is no need to worry about misplacing your thumb drive, as there’s no need for it anymore!

Network-Attached Storage (NAS) appliance is a data storage connected to an office network providing centralized storage and file sharing between multiple computers. More than just the basic storage feature, do look out for robust high-end server features that includes Gigabit Ethernet, hardware RAID, expansion, system monitoring capabilities and built-in backup.

If you do not need a high end NAS, make sure the appliance couples out-of-the-box deployment and easy management with robust file serving and data redundancy.

You heard about the many features of having a server and you are thinking if you should invest in buying a new server solely for file sharing purposes. Here shows 5 benefits of having NAS instead of file server.

Reason 1 : Fast setup
NAS comes with an easy web browser interface and setup wizard. Traditional file servers can take hours to configure.

Reason 2 : System Monitoring
System monitoring and email alerts are available in NAS to inform you when your disk space threshold is reached or disk failure. On the other hand, file servers don’t have built in system monitoring and email alerts.

Reason 3 : Affordable
Operating system license, server hardware and miscellaneous utility software such as backup software, monitoring tool can be very costly. You are paying NAS for less than a quarter the price of a file server.

Reason 4 : Compact in size
The ultra-compact size of a NAS makes it perfect for any home office or small office. A typical NAS has a size of eight inches tall and five inches wide. Unlike a file server, it can be fit on any desk without taking too much space.

Reason 5 : Low Noise
NAS does not make much noise compared to a file server. In fact, some NAS offers low power consumption and a special energy-saving mode that allows you to automate startup and shutdown.

In conclusion, if you already have a server in your office, it makes sense to configure it to have file sharing feature. If disk space is not sufficient, you can simply buy two additional disks and configure as RAID 1 redundancy. On the other hand, if your office does not have a server and just require a centralized storage and file sharing, a NAS will be great choice.

A good backup and recovery system is essential for a company of any size or individual. Unfortunately, company IT doesn’t always get the budget it needs, and the backup system does not seem to get the money that it needs. Well, if you would like to take responsibility for your own data in your computer and agree that you need a very good backup system, but you don’t have enough money to pull that off, this article was written with you in mind. Just because you have a small budget doesn’t mean you have to do without backup. The backup solutions in this article are meant for personal backup and can be implemented for a few hundred dollars – including hardware.

Most backup tools work on a schedule or on demand.

1. Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions include backup and restore. This feature allows you to create safety copies of your most important personal files on whatever schedule you choose. You can back up the whole drive or selected files to another drive or a DVD or even to a network location.
2. If you are diligent and don’t mind to do backup on your own on a regular basis, you can always copy data to removable drive such as portable hard disk, DVDs or thumb drives. Do not try to back up the data onto the same hard disk, as your back up will still be lost when your hard disk crash.  
3. If you do not have Windows 7 professional or ultimate editions or don’t like the hassle of manual back up, you may want to consider third party backup software. Do look out for features on various methods of backup such as incremental or differential;  the backup capabilities such as registry backup, address book backup, individual email backup; the output features such as backup to removable media, tape, FTP locations, online server; restores features such as replacing older files and duplicates, restore hard disk images, restore individual files; technical support such as live chat, telephone & email support, knowledgebase. Recommended software are NovaBackup and Acronis True Image Home 2011. Free backup software such as Macrium Reflect FREE and Easeus ToDo Backup 1.1 are available from download.cnet.com.
4. Online backup, also known as remote backup, allows you to regularly back up files, folders or the entire contents of a hard disk on a remote managed backup server.  When internet bandwidth gets bigger and cheaper, the remote files and folder appears as if they are stored on external hard drive. Encryption and password security help to ensure security and privacy.

But what if something happens to the files you are currently working on? Imagine you’ve spent hours editing an important document and suddenly there’s a power outage. That won’t be a problem if you’re using a real-time backup solution either by hardware or software mirroring method. Such products back up your files as they are being modified—and take very little in the way of system resources to run seamlessly in the background.

1. Hardware Mirror - Buy a RAID controller card and new hard disk of the same capacity and preferably same brand and model of your existing hard disk. Configure as RAID 1. When one hard disk crashes, you can still run on the mirrored hard disk.
2. Software Mirror - You can setup mirrors for your important folders, or even an entire drive, to another local/removable/network drive in real-time mirroring mode. Once you setup mirror(s) for a folder, mirroring will be done silently in the background without requiring any further effort or attention from you. When your hard disk crashes, you would need to replace the hard disk with new one and restore data from the mirrored source.

Your data is important and ought to be kept secured, safe yet able to be shared readily among the authorized personnel in the office.

SMEs and start-ups should take pre-emptive measures to keep their business systems secure and should not wait till business is mature. A secure business would mean software, especially operating system, is updated regularly; employees are educated on email and internet safety; firewall is setup; power supply to important equipments such as server is isolated and uninterrupted eg. when lights in office are tripped; data is backup and that includes the data in every individual desktop; wireless networks are secure; and data in thumb drives are encrypted.

Your colleague requires you to pass him your edited document so that he can add his portion. Do you send the document via email or thumb drive? You can do this for a start but as your data or team grows, you may find it insane to share data in this manner. A better solution is to store information on a shared and secure server to enable employees to access and share files easily. The shared space could be a file server; network attached storage (NAS) and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Office Groove and Microsoft Sharepoint Workspace.

It is important to realize that your initial upfront purchases of IT equipments such as desktop, laptops, UPS and servers only makes up a fraction of IT hardware cost. The rest of the costing make up of the maintenance of hardware and software. These investments are worth it as you see an improvement of productivity and support to your customers, and minimum downtime and risk involved.

If your office does not have a dedicated IT team and you wish to find out more on how to secure your IT systems or would like to purchase technology products, please feel free to contact our friendly staff.