LaCie Ethernet Disk RAID
User Manual
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Protecting Local Disks
7. Protecting Local Disks
Even if most of your data is stored and protected on
your Ethernet Disk RAID, your operating system files,
applications, and many other files still reside on each
individual computer in your network. If one of those lo-
cal disks fails, it can take many hours to re-install and
reconfigure the operating system and applications on a
new or repaired hard disk, and some files might be com-
pletely lost.
Windows Backup Software is a software application
designed to address this issue. On each computer where
it is installed, Windows Backup Software provides reli-
able data protection and rapid data recovery in the event
of a system crash or disk failure.
Windows Backup Software protects Windows
desktops and laptops by backing up their local disks or
partitions. To make sure that you have recent copies of
your local disk, Windows Backup Software can auto-
matically perform a backup at regularly scheduled inter-
vals—either once a day or once a week, whichever you
prefer. (You can also disable automatic backups and just
perform backups manually at a time of your choosing.)
Once the maximum number of supported backups are
saved on the Ethernet Disk RAID, the oldest backup
is automatically deleted each time a new backup is per-
formed.
To ensure that valuable storage space isn’t used up by
duplicate data, when Windows Backup Software per-
forms each subsequent backup, it copies only the data
that has changed since the last time a backup was per-
formed. This also minimized the impact on your net-
work. Yet through unique technology on the Ethernet
Disk RAID, each backup is a complete point-in-time
image. You can view or recover the entire disk or parti-
tion exactly as it existed at a particular date and time.
Whenever you want to recover data from the Eth-
ernet Disk RAID, you can do so quickly and easily. If
you need to recover just a few files or folders, you can
access the desired backup and copy what you need back
Fig. 7.
to your local disk. If you need to recover an entire data
disk or partition (that is, a disk or partition that does not
contain any of the files needed to run the operating sys-
tem), you can do so using Windows Backup Software.
And if you need to recover your whole system disk, you
can do so using the recovery CD. (Alternately, if your
computer does not support the recovery CD but does
support the PXE protocol, you can boot your computer
from a backup on the Ethernet Disk RAID and recover
your system disk.) When you recover a disk, it contains
exactly the same data that it contained at the time the
backup was performed—you don’t have to reinstall or
reconfigure the operating system or applications.
