Choosing backup storage media and location

Early in the process of determining your backup strategy, you're likely to choose the location of your data backups and the media to store the backups on, because these choices are the primary factors that affect the hardware and media costs associated with the system.

To make the best choice, first take a close look at what you need to back up, and how often you need to do it. This information determines the storage capacity, transfer bandwidth, and the degree to which multiple users can share the resource.

Your choices of backup media vary, depending on whether you create backup copies of your data on a local machine or on a remote machine by transferring the data via a network:

Here's a summary of some of the backup media you might consider, and their availability for local or remote backups:

Media Local/Neutrino Remote
Floppy Yes Yes
LS-120 Yes Yes
Tape No Yes
CD Yes Yes
DVD No Yes
Hard disk Yes Yes
Flash device Yes Yes
USB mass-storage device Yes Yes