It is strongly recommended to follow the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy. This states that there should be at least 3 copies of the data, stored on 2 different types of storage media, and one copy should be kept offsite, in a remote location, ideally in the cloud.

Local backups are great if you need to get to them quickly, but unfortunately, having a backup near the device that it’s backing up means that both of those copies are susceptible to data loss. In case of a fire, theft, or a hacker encrypting your data, both the original data and the local backup would be affected.

For the local copy we could provide you with a 2TB disk that should be used only for this purpose. The software we recommend is:

• For Windows: Windows 7 Backup and Restore Tool
• For Mac: Time Machine

For the remote copy there are many solutions. Here we explain:

• The ETH service for Backup and restore
• SwitchDrive

Once the backup systems are up and running it is strongly recommended to periodically check to recover your data, to check everything is going well.

If your data contains databases or virtual machines, please have a look at this section

Keep in mind that having only a local backup is not a good backup strategy. You would still be vulnerable to data loss and should also make a remote backup copy.

Windows 10 ships with the legacy “Backup and Restore” experience, which allows you to create full backups automatically at regular intervals.

Important: Backup and Restore is no longer a maintained feature on Windows 10. You can still use it, but in the future, it may stop working. Also, as a deprecated feature, Microsoft can decide to remove this tool in future releases completely.

System Image Backup (SIB) Solution We recommend that users use full-disk backup solutions from other vendors. (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/deployment/planning/windows-10-deprecated-features)

To configure Windows 7 Backup and Restore Tool please follow the steps in this guide: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-backup-windows-10-automatically

1. Connect an external storage device.
2. Open Time Machine preferences from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Or choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Time Machine.
3. Click Select Backup Disk.
4. Select the name of your disk, then click Use Disk. Time Machine immediately begins making periodic backups—automatically and without further action by you.

1. Connect the external storage device that contains the Time Machine backups to your Mac
2. Open a Finder window that displays the storage location where the lost data was last stored.
3. Open Time Machine by clicking the Time Machine icon on the menu bar or from the Launchpad.
4. Use Time Machine’s arrows and timeline to browse the local snapshots and backups. Scroll through to find the items you wish to recover. You can restore individual files or a complete disk at this point.
5. Select the items you wish to recover and click the Restore button. The restored items will be recovered to their original storage locations.

Storing data away from the primary storage will allow you to recover in a disaster situation. They are usually a bit more difficult to set up but this is the most recommended backup strategy.

If you are concerned about data confidentiality have a look at encription.

ETH offers a free remote backup service that provides protection against data loss by daily, automatic backup of the systems files and databases.

We have some experience using this service and can say it is useful but limited in some ways:

• To use the ETH backup service, the computer must be connected to the ETH network with a network cable. That means it works fine for desktop computers that are located in the offices, but not a proper solution for laptops, unless they are using the network cable. Wifi 'edouram' or the VPN do not work for this backup. To prevent this you could use your laptop only to remotely connect to your desktop computer.
• The computer must be switched on at the time set for the backup
• The user receives no notification in case the backup process failed. It is his responsibility to check the email received every day.

The ETH backup and restore service is based on the IBM’s Tivoli storage management system which provides a pure backup. You will use the TSM program to setup the backup policy and to restore the data if needed.

Once set up you will receive a daily report on how the backup has been running. It is your responsibility to check if it has been working right.

Guideline here: https://ethz.ch/staffnet/en/it-services/catalogue/storage/backup-restore.html

Switchdrive is a third-party synchronising software that can be used as a backup and is accessible using the SWITCH edu-ID Login

More info here: https://www.switch.ch/drive/

There are some open source backup & restore software. They are free to use but you should provide the remote storage space, for example:

• UrBackup
• Duplicati

If you are concerned about data confidentiality, you could always encrypt your data. Some online backup services automatically do this, and if not you could encrypt it yourself and set up the backup strategy to backup only the encrypted data. To do this you set up a password that will be needed to decrypt the data. The downside is in case you forget the password, the encrypted data will be impossible to recover.

Windows 10 includes a tool to encrypt folders. More info here: https://www.guru99.com/how-to-encrypt-files-folder-windows.html

To encrypt the data, go to the Finder > Applications > Utilities folder. Choose 'Disk Utility'. On the top of the menu, select File > New Image > Image from Folder. Choose the folder you wish to add a password to, then click 'Choose'.

On the next screen, choose your level of encryption (128-bit or 256-bit AES Encryption) and your password. Click 'Choose'. Next, next to 'Image Format', selection 'Read/Write'. Select 'Save' to exit the window.

Once the system finishes encrypting the folder, click 'Done'. Exit 'Disk Utility'.

Your newly created .dmg file is secure. You can share the .dmg file just as you would any other file. Double-click at any time to open it; you'll need to type in the password to complete the process.

In case of restoring a database or a virtual machine from the backup it could happen that just a copy of the files will not be enough to recover the data stored in them.

You should read about how to properly make a backup depending on the type of databse or virtual machine. Normally you would need to create a 'dump' of the database or an 'image' of the virtual machine.

You could always choose to backup the whole system instead of just some files. We would not recommend this since the backup (and restore) process would usually take longer, use a bigger backup size and would be harder to test if the backup copy is working properly.