Selection and Extraction of Data
A successful backup job starts with selecting and extracting coherent units of data. Most data on modern computer systems is stored in discrete units, known as files. These files are organized into filesystems. Files that are actively being updated can be thought of as "live" and present a challenge to back up. It is also useful to save metadata that describes the computer or the filesystem being backed up.
Deciding what to back up at any given time is a harder process than it seems. By backing up too much redundant data, the data repository will fill up too quickly. Backing up an insufficient amount of data can eventually lead to the loss of critical information.
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Famous quotes containing the words selection, extraction and/or data:
“Every writer is necessarily a critic—that is, each sentence is a skeleton accompanied by enormous activity of rejection; and each selection is governed by general principles concerning truth, force, beauty, and so on.... The critic that is in every fabulist is like the iceberg—nine-tenths of him is under water.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)
“Logic is the last scientific ingredient of Philosophy; its extraction leaves behind only a confusion of non-scientific, pseudo problems.”
—Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970)
“This city is neither a jungle nor the moon.... In long shot: a cosmic smudge, a conglomerate of bleeding energies. Close up, it is a fairly legible printed circuit, a transistorized labyrinth of beastly tracks, a data bank for asthmatic voice-prints.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)