3-2-1 Backup Rule or 3-2-1 Backup Plan
- Guidance
- May 05, 2015
Purpose
The 3-2-1 backup rule can help you overcome nearly any failure scenario if you follow it.
Explanation
The 3-2-1 backup plan implies that you should:
1. Have at least 3 copies of your data
Having three copies of data means that the first one would be your actual data, wherever they reside.
The other replicas will provide for high availability and redundancy, since the more replicas you have, the more chances to keep the data safe.
2. Keep these backups on 2 different media
You should keep the data in 2 different formats, for one format outlives the other. For example, disks from the same RAID are statistically dependent, and often, after one disk failure, you might experience the failure of another disk from the same storage in a short period (often because the devices were bought approximately at the same time and from the same vendor). Using different formats reduces the risks that all your backups will be damaged, as different formats have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to redundancy. Among the formats are: hard drive, tape library, DVD disks.
3. Store 1 backup offsite
It is understandable that a big disaster like an earthquake, fire or another unpleasant event will destroy buildings, and even datacenters may burn down resulting in powerful data loss. It is the reason why considering offsite data backups comes into view.
Offsite means as FAR AWAY as possible, in another city, state, country or even continent. Your data is safe then, even if there is a fire or national disaster.
There are many ways and solutions (like VEEAM backup, StarWind async replication, VTL, etc.) to accomplish this 3-aspect task, be they software or hardware. Backup process should be set as far from manual interaction as possible to avoid human error.
It is highly recommended to run backup jobs on a regular basis and scale (weekly, monthly backups, etc.) to be able to restore from the most recent and consistent one.
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