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2026-10-05 Security

The Tao Of Backup

The Tao Of Backup#

A summary of the seven “heads” of backup from taobackup.com, by Ross N. Williams (1997).

Key Takeaways#

  1. Coverage - Back up all the data, as named whole units
  2. Frequency - Back up frequently - usually daily, plus mirroring during the day
  3. Separation - Keep some copies offsite and physically separated.
  4. History - Keep a history; fast rotation with short history loses data.
  5. Testing - Test by restoring - the only real proof. Failures can be systemic.
  6. Security - Secure the media: inventory, lock it up, encrypt it.
  7. Integrity - Check integrity - corruption that goes undetected propagates through every backup.

Source#