The History of Backup
Tonight I found myself reading The History of Backup, which is a website that offers extensive details about what backing up is, why people need to back up data, different ways to back up data, and how backing up data has evolved over time. One of the points the article makes is a good one, and it is that one cannot know where something (a product, idea, anything) is going until one knows where it has been.
The definition of backing up, according to this site, is “the activity of copying files or databases, so that their additional copies may be restored in case of a data loss accident.” I think that’s a well stated, accurate and easy to understand definition.
The author takes the reader through the history of backup, starting with punch cards in the 1950s. He then moves on to tape backup, beginning its development in the 1960s. I agree with him on the tape backups. People are still using them. I was in computer sales for more than eleven years and many people still use them because of their size, portability and price. He then moves on to using hard drives for backing up, citing the 1990s as the point in time where they became a viable option.
At this point the writer covers backup media and portable backup solutions by covering use of floppies, cds , dvds and flash drives. He writes that blu ray and hd-dvd are the current up and coming backup media. A good amount of information is presented on blu ray in this article that I found very informative. I knew very little about it myself, and felt I had gained a better understanding of what it was after reading the information presented.
Finally, the writer moves on to large scale backup options via networks and the internet. He covers the meaning of off site backups, and discusses some common forms including local area network, file transfer protocal, storage area network, network attached storage and the world wide web.
I was quite impressed by the amount of information presented on this site. There is a wide variety of subtopics that fit under the main umbrella of backups, as illustrated by the timeline included on the site. The author has done a nice job summarizing and presenting them in one place for people seeking some more information or education on the topic.
