"The only data ever lost was data that was not backed up."

Hard drives crash, people make mistakes, natural disasters happen, and sometimes people take things that don't belong to them. Making an extra copy or two of things you wouldn't care to lose just makes sense.

The following describes the most popular backup protection procedures-- using three and six Travan cartridges.

Three-Cartridge Weekly Backup

This backup principle requires daily backups and a single weekly off-site backup copy to provide a data history of up to two weeks. Friday backups are full backups. Monday through Thursday backups are incremental backups (all on the same tape). Note: Restoring incremental changes may be more difficult using the three-cartridge principle.

	Start the cycle on a Friday and back up your entire hard disk onto a cartridge labeled Friday 1. This is a full backup of your system. Store the data cartridge off-site.
	On Monday, back up only the files that have been created or updated since the last backup (Friday 1); use a cartridge labeled Daily for this. Store the cartridge on-site. On Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, use the same Daily cartridge to back up files that have been created or updated since the previous day. Store the cartridge on-site.
	On Friday, do a full backup using a cartridge labeled Friday 2. Store this cartridge off-site. Continue the weekly routine of incremental backups for Monday through Thursday using the same Daily data cartridge. On Fridays, alternate the Friday 1 and Friday 2 cartridges.

Six-Cartridge Weekly Backup

This backup principle requires daily backups and a single weekly off-site backup copy to provide a data history of up to two weeks. Friday backups are full backups. Monday through Thursday backups are incremental backups.

	Start the cycle on a Friday and back up your entire hard disk onto a cartridge labeled Friday 1. This is a full backup of your system. Store the data cartridge off-site.
	On Monday, back up only the files that have been created or updated since the last backup (Friday 1); use a cartridge labeled Monday for this. (Or, for easier restoring, do a full backup.) Store the cartridge on-site.
	On the appropriate days, use cartridges labeled Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to back up files that have been created or updated since the previous day. (Or, for easier restoring, do a full backup.) Store these on-site.
	On Friday, do a full backup using a cartridge labeled Friday 2. Store this cartridge off-site. Once you get this far, you continue the weekly incremental backups for Monday through Thursday using the same Monday through Thursday data cartridges. On Fridays, alternate the Friday 1 and Friday 2 cartridges.

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