Unexpected computer crashes that lead to a total loss of important business and personal data are making data prevention software essential for anyone who uses a computer. Almost anyone uses a computer to store files, from photos and music to secure documents. Professionals especially those who make their living online tend to have a majority of their business data stored on computers. This is the reason why you need to use software that will secure your files for you before a computer crash wipes your drive clean.
Top Features Available in the Best Data Loss Prevention Software
Top features to look for in good data loss prevention software include fast backup, minimal maintenance, efficient use of data space, easy accessibility, and high scalability. You also need data backup software to perform secure backups, which only accepts backup requests from clients.
Most users prefer software that perform fast and non-intrusive backups. Installation should also be easy. Most top-rated software can be installed in less than 20 minutes and the software automatically deploys clients to linked devices such as your phone or tablet. The top-rated software also performs automatic software updates but you can schedule when your computer checks for updates and how to install them.
Top-rated DLP software are also app-aware. This means that they utilize the minimum amount of disk space through an efficient system of duplicate reduction. Backups are made faster this way since you utilize less bandwidth. Quality DLP software also tweak how bandwidth is utilized in order to further increase the backup speed by choosing the optimal packet size coupled with the use of up to 8 threads in one network to make the best use of the bandwidth available. Administrators can further tweak this feature with the use of smart percentage bandwidth caps.
Quality data loss prevention software also allows users to restore their data using various devices anytime whether they are using browser-based restore options in their laptops and other mobile devices such as the iPhone or iPad.
Excellent data loss prevention software can be the fine line that divides a successful business from one that you have to rebuild from scratch. If you do business online or if you store important data on your laptop, you need the security that only high quality data security software can give you. Start with the features mentioned above to find data loss prevention software that can give your files the protection they need.
08 February, 2012
BIOS ERROR - Can't Find Hard Drive!
I remember the first time I suffered a fatal Hard Drive failure. It was 1999. The first family PC we bought.
Oh yes I remember it well. Pentium Processor, not Pentium Dual Core or P4 or P3 or for that matter P2. No, just Pentium. Ran at 133Mhz on a 66Mhz FSB. 16 Meg of RAM (yes, huge I know) and a simply massive 1.2GB Fujitsu hard disk. Ah, those were the days, when building your own PC was cool and Windows 95 looked so much better than 3.11 that we were all tricked into thinking that it was better!
After 2 years of faithful service I came down one morning, pressed the PC's power button and went to make Coffee. It was strange, I thought the Coffee machine had issues. There were funny clicking and clinking sounds emanating around the room. Because of other Kitcheny (I don't think that's a word) noises it sounded for all the world like the Coffee machine. I tapped it, bashed it, switched it off then on again initially not noticing the sound continued when it was off. It was then out of the corner of my eye I could see the hard disk LED really wasn't doing what it should and almost quicker than a Core i7 could do it my brain flipped from the prospect of no Coffee to Data loss... Arrrggghhhhh!!!
I repair and service computers for a living and I now make a point of asking each customer I visit if they've backed up recently and recommending how to do it if they haven't. Back then it wasn't that bad. The data on there wasn't too important although it was a real pain for a few weeks. But now I have about 10 years of family photos that are simply irreplaceable on a single hard disk. Frankly If I tried to explain to you how modern hard drives actually save your data (and I don't really understand it myself!) you would freak out, run to your nearest computer store, buy an external hard drive then run home and backup your PC.
The worst part of my job is having to tell a customer that all their data is gone and the only way they are going to get it back is to send the hard disk to a professional data recovery company. About £500 if they're lucky.
Please people, make sure you keep regularly backing up your important data. You can use CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, USB stick or external hard drives. Just as long as you have a second copy somewhere. There are also a myriad of online solutions available most of which get on with the job automatically taking all the hassle and worry away. These also protect against fire and theft since the information is stored offsite in a secure data center.
So, remember those 3 rules...
1. Backup
2. Backup
3. Backup
Oh yes I remember it well. Pentium Processor, not Pentium Dual Core or P4 or P3 or for that matter P2. No, just Pentium. Ran at 133Mhz on a 66Mhz FSB. 16 Meg of RAM (yes, huge I know) and a simply massive 1.2GB Fujitsu hard disk. Ah, those were the days, when building your own PC was cool and Windows 95 looked so much better than 3.11 that we were all tricked into thinking that it was better!
After 2 years of faithful service I came down one morning, pressed the PC's power button and went to make Coffee. It was strange, I thought the Coffee machine had issues. There were funny clicking and clinking sounds emanating around the room. Because of other Kitcheny (I don't think that's a word) noises it sounded for all the world like the Coffee machine. I tapped it, bashed it, switched it off then on again initially not noticing the sound continued when it was off. It was then out of the corner of my eye I could see the hard disk LED really wasn't doing what it should and almost quicker than a Core i7 could do it my brain flipped from the prospect of no Coffee to Data loss... Arrrggghhhhh!!!
I repair and service computers for a living and I now make a point of asking each customer I visit if they've backed up recently and recommending how to do it if they haven't. Back then it wasn't that bad. The data on there wasn't too important although it was a real pain for a few weeks. But now I have about 10 years of family photos that are simply irreplaceable on a single hard disk. Frankly If I tried to explain to you how modern hard drives actually save your data (and I don't really understand it myself!) you would freak out, run to your nearest computer store, buy an external hard drive then run home and backup your PC.
The worst part of my job is having to tell a customer that all their data is gone and the only way they are going to get it back is to send the hard disk to a professional data recovery company. About £500 if they're lucky.
Please people, make sure you keep regularly backing up your important data. You can use CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, USB stick or external hard drives. Just as long as you have a second copy somewhere. There are also a myriad of online solutions available most of which get on with the job automatically taking all the hassle and worry away. These also protect against fire and theft since the information is stored offsite in a secure data center.
So, remember those 3 rules...
1. Backup
2. Backup
3. Backup
Why You Should Never Remove The Cover Of A Computer Hard Drive????????????
Hard Drive Anatomy
In order to explain why removing the cover of a hard drive is not a particularly good idea it is helpful to understand a little about how a hard drive stores, and accesses, your data.
Inside a hard drive is a circular disk on which your data is stored magnetically and is then accessed by a read/write head which hovers above the platter (very close - only a matter of microns) and interprets the magnetic data. These disks rotate at an incredibly high speed (usually 5400rpm or 7200rpm). The circular disk (commonly referred to as the platter) is usually constructed of aluminium or glass but has a very thin special coating over the top where the data is on the platter will be stored.
This special layer is extremely sensitive and due to the speeds at which the patter spins inside a hard drive can easily be damaged by the smallest of particles such as dust and other airborne contaminants. If you think this is an exaggeration then what you have to remember is that at 7200RPM a small piece of dust hitting against a very thin layer that contains your valuable data will be travelling at an incredible speed and this spells trouble for your platters surface.
Why A Class 100 Clean Room is so Important
As highlighted above, if you get any tiny particles of dust inside your hard drive then this will cause big trouble as soon as the drive spins again. In your home or at an office there are typically 500,000 to 1,000,000 airborne particles 0.5 microns in diameter or larger for every cubic foot of air - so as soon as you remove the cover from a drive in this environment you are in big trouble!
A class 100 clean room is a specialised environment in which there is less than 100 airborne particles (<0.5 microns diameter) per cubic foot of air. It is in these environments in which hard drives are built in the first place - they are assembled fully and then sealed so that no dust particles can enter the drives once they are shipped out to retailers.
If there is ever a need to open a hard drive for data recovery (e.g. a swap of read/write heads or a change of spindle motor) then it must be performed in a class 100 clean room by a professional data recovery specialist or you run the risk of permanently damaging your data. There are of course numerous examples of people on the internet that claim to have successfully opened/repaired drives at home but you can bet for every success story there are probably 100 people that have lost their data for good.
The bottom line is never open a hard drive at home unless you cannot afford to pay for a professional data recovery specialist or you do not consider the data valuable enough to risk losing.
In order to explain why removing the cover of a hard drive is not a particularly good idea it is helpful to understand a little about how a hard drive stores, and accesses, your data.
Inside a hard drive is a circular disk on which your data is stored magnetically and is then accessed by a read/write head which hovers above the platter (very close - only a matter of microns) and interprets the magnetic data. These disks rotate at an incredibly high speed (usually 5400rpm or 7200rpm). The circular disk (commonly referred to as the platter) is usually constructed of aluminium or glass but has a very thin special coating over the top where the data is on the platter will be stored.
This special layer is extremely sensitive and due to the speeds at which the patter spins inside a hard drive can easily be damaged by the smallest of particles such as dust and other airborne contaminants. If you think this is an exaggeration then what you have to remember is that at 7200RPM a small piece of dust hitting against a very thin layer that contains your valuable data will be travelling at an incredible speed and this spells trouble for your platters surface.
Why A Class 100 Clean Room is so Important
As highlighted above, if you get any tiny particles of dust inside your hard drive then this will cause big trouble as soon as the drive spins again. In your home or at an office there are typically 500,000 to 1,000,000 airborne particles 0.5 microns in diameter or larger for every cubic foot of air - so as soon as you remove the cover from a drive in this environment you are in big trouble!
A class 100 clean room is a specialised environment in which there is less than 100 airborne particles (<0.5 microns diameter) per cubic foot of air. It is in these environments in which hard drives are built in the first place - they are assembled fully and then sealed so that no dust particles can enter the drives once they are shipped out to retailers.
If there is ever a need to open a hard drive for data recovery (e.g. a swap of read/write heads or a change of spindle motor) then it must be performed in a class 100 clean room by a professional data recovery specialist or you run the risk of permanently damaging your data. There are of course numerous examples of people on the internet that claim to have successfully opened/repaired drives at home but you can bet for every success story there are probably 100 people that have lost their data for good.
The bottom line is never open a hard drive at home unless you cannot afford to pay for a professional data recovery specialist or you do not consider the data valuable enough to risk losing.
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