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“Nobody understands the Cloud, it’s a mystery!” Jason Segel’s character shouts in the comedy movie, Sex Tape.
Since the recent Apple iCloud photo leak, the security of cloud storage is once again being brought under the media spotlight. From individuals to corporations, many are raising concerns on how to prevent valuable and important data being stolen and leaked. Don’t want to panic like Segel did? Let’s see what can we learn from this iCloud storm.
Misunderstanding of Cloud Applications
With improved internet speed and convenience of smart phones, many users nowadays simply back up data to cloud storage. It’s convenient, but cloud was actually originally designed to be used for data transfer, not for long term data storage. While being very simple to use, for long term data storage which requires extra security, there are other safer and more reliable solutions than cloud.
Options of Backup Solutions
Hard drive is currently the most popular choice among individuals and organization for data backup. It’s fast, cheap and convenient. However, be aware that even though it’s possible to create additional copies on multiple hard drives with RAID technology, hard drives short life span of average 5 years still poses a potential risks.
Cassette tapes and optical medias are also favorable options. Especially optical media which has the uneditable characteristic once the data is written, which is great for archival data storage. Now large data capacity discs like BD-XL which allows 100 GB is also available.
Optical Media for Long Lasting Data Storage
The average lifespan of optical discs is around 6~7 years, M-Disc DVDs and Blu-rays are new type of optical discs which can last up to 1,000 years. Panasonic and Mitsubishi are offering 50/100GB high grade Blu-ray disc for archive. Pioneer also introduced BDR-PR1M writers which are specially designed for backup and archive purpose.
In 2005, Japan passed the Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS Z 6017), which require corporations to store digital data up to 10 years. The regulations recommend optical medias as the choice of storage medias. As western countries may gradually follow Japan’s steps, it’s clear that optical medias is a reliable backup medium.
Simplify Disc Archiving
Software developer, Broadex Systems, Inc., is currently developing Disc Archiver, a disc burning software application specialized in optical disc archiving. The simplified users interface will allow large amounts of files and folders to be copied to disc automatically with only few clicks of mouse. The software tool can also restore the data from discs back to hard drive. The best of all, beside standard external and internal disc drives, Disc Archiver also supports the affordable Nimbie USB Plus autoloaders. Users will no longer require to manually feed discs, the robotic loader will handle and automate the whole archive and restore process. With the combination of autoloaders and optical media, backup can be done safer and easier.
After all, the ideal backup storage solution will depend on your individual or company needs, the best overall system is the one that continues to protect your computer with minimal human interaction. As long as you understand the pros and cons of the solutions, rest assured, you will be calm within the cloud storm.
Reference:
http://pioneer.jp/biz/bizdrive/