Top 7 Protection Features for Data Storage

Time is money and so is the data – one of our colleagues came up with this quote and it is basically a perfect answer to the question: why should you use proper data protection features? Yet, there is something else we need to ask ourselves. How to choose a good way to protect data? Today we want to share with you our top 7 protection features for data storage, based on our longtime experience. Before we review each of these solutions, let’s take a look at the threats we aim to overcome.

Don’t worry though! We will guide you safely through the dense server jungle!

Data Storage Predators: Identify The Enemy!

There are many predators just waiting to harm your data (or eat it alive!). Threats come in many forms, from data integrity breaches, through hardware failures to employee misconduct and natural disasters. The effects of all these damaging scenarios can be overcome by ensuring data security through the implementation of 7 data protection features, which we will now examine. Let’s take a look at them!

1. Self-healing and Scrubbing

Let’s start from the very basic level. How to avoid your data consistency being interrupted by silent data corruption? The ZFS system has a solution for that, and it is known as self-healing of data. This feature means that the system checks the integrity of data when it is read out, and if any error is spotted, the system corrects it so your data can be healthy and ready to use again! There is also an option to run a check of the data integrity manually through the scrubbing process. You should keep it in mind and use it frequently, as the data that is not accessed for a long time won’t be protected by self-healing, which works only while reading data.

2. Snapshots and Retention Plans

The same way you take some pictures to post on your social media, ZFS can take a picture of your data system in a particular moment in time to gain the ability of recreating it. These “images” called snapshots are read-only files that store information about the state of the data system at a particular moment in time and allow you to revert to a previous version if any unwanted changes have occurred. It is a strong tool, especially against ransomware attacks, as the hackers can encrypt your data, but they have no power to encrypt a read-only file – that’s what snapshots exactly are.

Moreover, you can create retention plans based on the frequency of taking the snapshots and the time they should be kept. It is important to use this feature wisely, as you don’t want to plug up your system with an excessive number of snapshots you don’t really need. Always calculate it precisely to your needs!

3. RAIDs and Redundant Copies of Your Data

Do you know that the average drive failure rate is 100%? They all are physically limited and, at some point, must meet their end. This also refers to the data that is kept on it: if the drive dies, the data held on it is gone as well. If only there was a way not to lose this data… in fact there is a solution!

You can use several disks to create a RAID or mirror copies. This way, the system will create redundant copies of your data and redistribute them among configured disks, so in case of single or even multiple disks failure, there is still an option to recreate lost data from/using the redundant copies that are still kept on the well-performing disks!

As in the case of snapshot retention plans, here you must also make some decisions, especially considering how many disks you would like to reserve for redundant copies and what level of protection you need this feature to provide.

4. High-Availability of Data

Nobody wants any disk to fail, but it happens. So what if a whole data storage system fails? Well, you can always have an additional system that will hold redundant data copied from the original one.

To protect your data storage on a higher level, you can create a high-availability cluster. It consists of two redundant servers called nodes that work together in one system to ensure that if one appliance goes off, the second one can automatically take over its actions.

This kind of setup ensures your Business Continuity as you keep an uninterrupted access to data, even if a disturbing event with your node occurs, letting your business operations to be always in motion for better workflow.

5. On-Site Backup Server

If you have been reading with attention, you can probably guess what I’m going to state right now. Yes – your high-availability cluster is also threatened. For example, when one of your employees is temporarily very distracted. Chances are that someone will accidentally and permanently delete some important data from your system. Or your appliance might be simply threatened by a hot coffee spilled by a data storage specialist. We are sure you don’t hire clumsy people, but accidents happen, and everyone has some worse days. That’s why you need another assurance that you won’t lose your data for good. This one is pretty simple – you can create an additional backup server at your place of work for easy access to your backed-up data in case anything goes wrong with your high-availability cluster.

6. Off-Site Backup Server

Do you remember what we stated about the local data storage solutions? Natural disasters and human destructive drives are still out there, and they still look forward to destroying your data storage appliances. That’s why it is good to have one extra appliance in the form of an off-site backup server located in a totally different place. This is the final line of defense that can save you from losing your data for good.

7. Maximum Data Security

Finally, we come to the most effective way of protecting data storage. It is so powerful because… it basically consists of every form of data protection we mentioned before. By combining High Availability with On- & Off-site Data Protection, you provide your data storage with a Maximum Data Security that ensures your data safety on many levels. We can say that it creates strategic armor that will protect your data from any harm.
Cover Your Data With Layers of Protection

Again, losing data = losing money. If you really care about your company’s business growth, it is worth remembering how important it is to protect your data from any disruptive events and to implement disaster recovery measures. If you would like to read more about how disruptive results of losing data can be, make sure to check our Beyond Backup brochure in which we dive into more statistics and technical details you can use to understand this topic even better and get some inspiration on implementing better data protection in your own data storage system. We hope that your data storage will always be in top form, ready to cope with any struggles and attacks coming in different forms!