We live in an era where most data is in digital format. In this format, data is easily damaged or lost. Sometimes the data will self-damage for no reason, and sometimes the hardware that stores the data will fail data synchronization .
Similar to the case of copying and archiving data "just in case" in the past, we now do the same with digital data. In this day and age, we move data for various reasons, but mainly during data archiving or migrating to different servers. The problem is that most people don't pay much attention to the process of data archiving. They see it as copying and pasting last year's vacation photos from one partition to another. For ordinary users, this is usually the case, but companies do different things. Data archiving or migration in a company is a process that requires careful planning and thinking. The lack of seriousness of the person in charge of the process is the cause of complications and data loss.
Today, I will discuss some typical mistakes that people usually make during the migration process. Whether it is migrating data or backing up data, the errors are similar.
According to the data stored by the company, the archiving process does not take a few minutes. Imagine uploading a few megabytes of data to a remote server; it may take several hours or days. This is why it is important to plan and inform other departments. This process is usually done in the background, but it is not recommended to add new data or change existing data. This behavior brings us to the second common mistake.
Migrating data with multiple people is like trying to save a word document that is being edited by hundreds of people. You will never keep it with the information you need. This is why it is very important to let the process continue without modifying the data. It will ensure that everything is transferred correctly and there are no missing parts.
This error usually applies to backups, but it is common. If you want to make a backup, make sure to use multiple backup locations. Even if the server has redundancy and backup, security is better than regret. This is more expensive than having only one backup location, but it is nothing compared to partial or total loss of data.
Whether you are migrating data or backing up data, there is no reason to do it all. For example, if you work on the design and save each change with a different version number, you can have ten draft versions and one final version. If you have the last version, it doesn't make sense to move the ten draft versions. Doing so will only slow down the data archiving process and increase the cost of storage on the server.
Here I want to talk about two points: backup frequency and backup duration. First of all, as we all know, backing up data is important; yes, even your holiday photos. The difference between your photos and your company's files is that the latter is constantly updated with new data. Regular backups can ensure that even if the local data is lost, you can recover 99% or even 100% of the data from the server. This leads to the number of backups you should keep.
Most people will say that a backup is enough and you should rewrite it. However, they were wrong. Imagine that a problem occurred during the data migration process, leaving damaged data, and your previous backup was deleted because you overwritten it. This is why it is recommended to keep at least one backup so that in this case, you can still save most of the data.
As I have always mentioned, the process of data archiving or backup is something that should be taken seriously. Don't rush, start backing up everything. First, see what data needs to be backed up, see how long it takes, notify everyone, try not to ignore anything, and most importantly, don’t rush. Instead of losing data, wait a few hours.