But as the amount of data that must be backed up increases, it puts a big strain on those resources.

Here’s some advice on getting the most out of your backup, courtesy of Gartner analyst Dave Russell:

•    Tape isn’t dead. The number of companies backing up to disk is still high and tape still offers a
cost-effective way to get what most firms need – but it’s got problems.
One disadvantage is that it still involves more manual processes – so there’s more chance of human error, for example, if someone forgets to change tapes, or if they’re lost.

•    You have to test, especially when you’re using tape, which isn’t as reliable as disk. Doing regular recovery exercises will help make sure you can get the data before you have to.

•    Try deduplication. According to Russell, when backups are performed, typically only about 10% of the data has changed since the last backup. That leads to a lot of compounding of unnecessary information.

Deduplication software helps by saving online one instance of each file. It costs money, of course, but it can cut down on space needs, which can save a good bit, especially if you’re using disks.