Data Backups

Backup and Redundancy Philosophy

We highly encourage you to establish a backup and redundancy concept for your datasets. 
To keep your precious work safe and sound you should start with backups right after data acquisition.
Keep in mind that larger centralized storage volumes provided by the "on campus" infrastructure normally does not get an "automagic" backup. And even if there is a backup, the backup schedule is normally too lame (weekly) to protect you against data losses during the "hot phase" of you scientific work.

We recommend the 3-2-1 rule as best practice for data backup and data protection. 
It provides a simple framework for ensuring that your data is well-preserved and recoverable in various scenarios.

3 redundant copies of your data:
You should maintain at least three separate copies of your data. This means having the original data (the primary copy) and two additional copies. These additional copies can be in the form of backups or replicas.
   
By having three copies of your data, you create redundancy, which protects against the loss of one or even two copies. If one copy becomes corrupted or is lost, you still have two others to rely on.
    
2 Different Storage Media:
Your three copies of data should be stored on two different types of storage media. This means using a variety of storage technologies or devices to store your data. For example, your primary data may reside on a local hard drive, and your backup copies could be on external hard drives, network-attached storage (NAS), tape drives, or cloud storage.
   
Storing data on different types of storage media reduces the risk of losing data due to a single type of hardware failure. It is sufficient to pick two storage systems with completely different "failure scenarios". 
For example, if your primary data is on a internal hard drive and one backup is on an external network-attached storage (NAS) with integrated RAID5 redundancy, you may consider these as different media even though both systems store on spinning disks.
       
1 Offsite Copy:
At least one of the two additional copies should be stored offsite. The offsite copy is crucial for protection against disasters that could affect the primary location, such as fires, floods, theft, or other physical damage. Offsite storage options include cloud backup services, remote data centers, or physically transporting backups to a different location.
   
An offsite copy ensures that your data is safe from location-specific disasters. If your primary data and one backup are in the same physical location, they could both be compromised if a disaster strikes. The offsite copy acts as an insurance policy.