Time Machine is a built-in automated backup application that comes on all new Mac computers. It is meant to work with external hard drives and Apple’s Time Capsule, which is its product line of wireless Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. Time Machine was first released in 2007 for Mac OS »

When most people think of databases they think of relational databases because for years they have been most popular type of database by a wide margin. A relational database is a database with multiple tables, and each table has rows of entries and columns with attribute names. Relational database can »

Enterprises love the cloud because of its scalability and efficiency. However, many organizations cannot take advantage of cloud computing for one of multiple reasons. The federal government, as well as local state and municipal governments, are often legally barred from using externally hosted and controlled computing resources. Also, companies in »

When most people think of databases they think of relational databases because for years relational databases have been the norm. These databases have tables with rows and columns, and will remind people of the structure of Microsoft Excel worksheets. They have been used as the database solution for small businesses »

Drobos are a product line of external storage devices made by Drobo, Inc. The company manufactures direct-attached storage (DAS) like hard drives, storage area networks (SANs), which are a network specifically made for storage, and network attached storage (NAS) servers that attached to a network and provide storage to all »

A Network Attached Storage (NAS) server is a device that only provides data storage to other devices connected to the same network. Think of a NAS as a computer that only provides storage space for files and doesn’t do anything else, like have a web browser, word processor, or email. »

DLNA stands for “Digital Living Network Alliance” and is a technology standard and certification that enables digital devices to communicate and share information with each other. It was started by Sony in June 2003 and has over 200 member organizations around the world. Thousands of devices are currently DLNA certified »

File Compression is the process of taking data and making it smaller. This is often done by removing redundant information and/or using some type of encoding scheme. File compression is usually used for files served over the Internet since they need to be as small as possible to reduce download »

Almost all businesses nowadays collect and use digital data. Companies that deal with confidential information, like health records or banking information, need to be especially careful to preserve it since loosing it could mean lawsuits or criminal action. When data loss does happen, and it most likely will eventually happen »

Everyone knows that on modern operating systems when you delete a file it first heads to the trash can or recycle bin, depending on the operating system you are running. When the trash can or recycle bin is emptied, the files aren’t actually deleted from the hard drive. Rather, the »

Typically when you delete a file on modern operating systems, the link pointing to that file is actually deleted, not the file itself. That means the file is most likely still on the hard drive and is the reason why there are so many free data recovery tools. Now, it »

BeyondRAID is a data backup technology developed by Drobo, the maker of many types of external data storage hardware. Drobo decided to make BeyondRAID to combat some of the problems it encountered with regular RAID technology. I’m not going to cover any of the regular RAID levels in-depth for this »

Solid state drives (SSDs) are all the rage right now with computer enthusiasts because of their stellar performance. They make boot-ups and load times extremely fast and don’t have any moving parts because they are essentially big flash drives. Hard disk drives (HDDs) are the time-tested storage medium that has »

Both encryption and hashing are pillars of the data protection community. Both protect data and make it difficult to use if it is stolen. The two are often considered to be synonymous, but there are a couple of key distinctions that separate the two. Modern encryption algorithms have grown increasingly »

Data comes in all shapes and sizes, but most experts classify data into three states. The first is "Data at Rest", which is as the name implies, static data that is not being manipulated. The second state is called "Data in Motion", sometimes referred to as "Data in Transit", and »

Cloud data is often heralded as more safe and secure than local storage. While most online service providers do take appropriate measures to ensure information is safe and secure, many possible issues could cause data loss, like physical damage to a data center or hacks and other malicious intrusions That’s »