Backups

How important is your data?


Here is the page for our Backup FAQ.

If your data is important to you, it’s important to make sure that you don’t lose it!

For backups, the “3-2-1 backup” rule is good practice.

  • have at least 3 copies of your data
  • make sure you use at 2 different forms of media for backups
  • have at least 1 copy offsite

Here is Carbonite’s page on 3-2-1 backups, and here is Backblaze’s page on 3-2-1 backups.


For “always on” Desktop computers and Servers, we use Retrospect for backups.
For Laptop computers (where usage is sometimes unpredictable), we use CrashPlan for backups.

However, it is also recommended that users get into the habit of utilizing cloud services for storage of your documents and data.
Washington University provides Box and OneDrive access to all students and employees.


For centralized storage of data, we have our BMB Network Storage servers and the university has their Research Storage servers.

Backups for both BMB Network Storage and WashU Research Storage is via snapshots and tape backup.