The 3-2-1 Rule-The defacto standard of backup.
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There should be three copies of any data you really care about. If it’s critical data, loss of which would cause you to lose business, financial documents, photos etc.
The 3-2-1 broken down to the basics is
(1) Your active copy that you’re using on your computer.
(2) An on-site backup copy (usually external hdd).
(3) An off-site backup copy(usually cloud backup).
Let's go through the pros and cons of local and cloud backups though you should be using both.
Pros of Local (Backup):
Fast to recover from and fast to backup to and recover from
Independent of internet speed, availbility, and stability.
Cons of Local (Backup):
Vulnerable to the same issues as the computer, it's backing up; Such as in the event of theft, fire, flood general drive failures, viruses.
Pros of Cloud (Backup):
Cloud is not affected by any of these physical issues, in addition, cloud backup isn’t prone to viruses, etc.
Proper versioning and file history so if you change or delete a file and you need back the version before it.
Cons of Cloud (backup):
On the other hand, backing up and recovering all the data from the cloud can take time and depends on network stability in case of a catastrophic failure, so for individuals or business where full quick recovery is essential local is necessary too.
Options
Local Backup Is usually some form of external hard drive or flash drive. The tool I use is Syncback Pro though there are many other options like Microsoft Synctoy. Synctoy tutorial and Syncback Tutorial