Backup Policy
Administrative Staff Computers Attached to the Fileserver
The Faculty's fileserver is subject to the following backup regime. The disks upon which the data sits are RAIDed - i.e. the disks are kept in sync so that if one fails the other continues to function with a full copy of the data until such time as the defunct disk is replaced. Nightly backups are perfomed to external disks attached to the server which in turn are archived onto a remote server on a weekly and monthly basis. Whilst this does provide us with some capacity for recovering old versions of files this procedure is very timeconsuming and in no way trivial. Administrative staff are provided with USB memory sticks onto which they can copy any files they feel they might want to retrieve and it is highly recommended that they are used regularly.
Academic Staff Computers Attached to the Server
Data on machines attached to the fileserver used by academic staff is backed up in an identical way to that outlined above. On the same basis we are happy to advise staff on the appropriate equipment to make your own copies of your work.
Exams Data
The University maintains that exams data cannot be safely stored in a network device. Therefore administrative staff are advised to keep three copies of exam-related material. The first should be on one of the USB sticks provided by the Faculty, the second should be on an alternative portable media, such as a second USB stick or CD, the third copy should be a hardcopy printout which can be scanned in case of complete data loss.
Staff in Colleges
Staff with Faculty computers based in college should first ask their College Computer Officer about the facilities available locally as these will vary. In the absence of any centralised backup for academic data MML staff are happy to advise on the best way for you to protect your data.
Students
You are responsible for your own data! Don't be one of our 'total data loss before a deadline' statistics. Students lose data for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of the failure of hard drives (they are - at least for now - mechanical devices with moving parts that do go wrong!) in personal computers that weren't backed up, or computer theft. There are various ways you can protect your data and we recommend deploying a combination of these to ensure your data is REALLY safe:
- Talk to your college IT staff to see what local arrangements may be in place.
- If you work mostly on your own computer consider using a remote connection to the PWF to create a remote backup. The Computing Service provide guidelines on how to do this.
- Invest in a portable external hard drive, or USB stick, or even more than one. Data storage devices are becoming remarkably cheap (even for students!) and ask yourself what price you put on your sanity.
- Use email, or a cloud computing solution such as GoogleDocs or BoxNet to keep additional remote copies of your files.
- Keep hard copies of your really important files so that if the worst happens you can scan them.
- Take a copy home with you in the vacation.
Bear in mind that some of the worst horror stories we've heard have been the result of students keeping their only backup copy of their data on a hard drive or USB stick next to their computer resulting in both copies being stolen. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
