MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-270): Installing ...

How to Plan a Backup
20-5
You should plan your backup jobs to fit the needs of your company. The primary goal
of backing up data is to be able to restore that data if necessary, so any backup plan
that you develop should incorporate how you restore data. You should be able to
quickly and successfully restore critical lost data. There is no single correct backup
plan for all networks.
Consider the following guidelines in formulating your backup plan.
Determine What to Back Up
Always back up critical files and folders, such as user-created documents, sales and
financial records, and the System State (the Windows Registry and a number of critical
configurations). Also, identify application settings and documents that will be required
to restore a user’s desktop environment, including bookmarks, browser cookies, templates,
and application settings.
Determine How Often to Back Up
If data is critical for company operations, back it up daily. If users create or modify
reports once a week, backing up the reports weekly is sufficient. You need to back up
data only as often as it changes. For example, there is no need to do daily backups on
files that rarely change, such as monthly reports or the Windows XP Professional operating
system files.
In summary, you should choose your backup frequency by thinking about how much
data you can lose in the event of a hard disk failure. If you do not mind losing a week’s
worth of data, you can back up your data once per week. In environments in which
data is extremely valuable, files can be backed up multiple times per day.
Determine Which Target Media to Use for Storing Backup Data
With the Backup Utility, you can back up to the following:
Lesson 1 Using the Backup Utility
File You can back up data to a backup file, which Backup can write to a hard drive,
removable media drive (such as an Iomega Zip drive), or network location (such
as a file server). The file that is created has the .bkf extension and contains the files
and folders that you have selected to back up.