We all have some really important and sensitive information on our computer. And when it crashes, we’re in deep trouble. Backing up is critical for everything that we do in our roles as faculty members, but not everyone knows what tools exist for this. We need to have something available (“Have a server available for backing up data on a regular basis”), and someone needs to show us how to use it (“Advice on how and what is available for backing up our systems”).
In fact, this is one of the primary purposes for Royal Drive. Royal Drive is IR’s recommended backup option for faculty, and you access it either via the web (royaldrive.scranton.edu) or by using a desktop client. Computer Training Coordinator Vince Yanusauskas has written up a Quick Start guide for Royal Drive 7.0 (available in PDF format) and also offers regular trainings on Royal Drive for all University faculty and staff members. Royal Drive is secure (files are encrypted), robust (it’s backed up regularly), and is freely available to University faculty. Storage space is initially limited, but you can request more.
There are other options for backup, though many have disadvantages. Some faculty on campus use third party backup services – like Dropbox, Jungle Disk, or Carbonite – while others use external hard drives. If you’re using one of these non-Royal Drive options, don’t forget that you need to be especially careful if you have sensitive data (e.g., anything covered by FERPA) to store. Tony Maszeroski, the University’s Information Security Manager, advises faculty to use full-disk encryption (check out TrueCrypt if your external backup device doesn’t come with full-disk encryption built in).
TAG is keeping track of best practices for data storage that we’ll disseminate to the faculty. If you have any specific thoughts, or want to look at the information that we have available at present, please visit our page on Backup.
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