Continuing on ideas for the "Perfect" SOHO Backup System.
Previously:
1. Local Backup
2. 3-2-1 Rule
3. Off-Site doesn't have to be instant
4. Reporting
5. Backup Set Selection
6. Cloud Resources
7. Delete and Overwrite Protection
8. Archiving
9. Dedupe
Today:
9. Search Awareness
At first, this may seem to have nothing to do with backup, so let me try to explain. We back files up because they're important (or we think they might be), right? And if they're important, that means we might want to look at them again someday, right? Well, to look at them again, we have to be able to find them, and over time, most of us tend to lose track of all the things we've ever created. So, hopefully, we have some good form of search implemented that let's us find all that stuff that we're so careful to keep in backing up.
Often, however, we're inundated with search results because of the glut of files. If backup and search knew about each other, maybe we could have some ways to help clean-up on the fly. A few ideas:
- If search was aware of archive storage, but could differentiate it, then it would be possible to search active storage without searching the archives. A search option (checkbox?) would allow for "also searching archives"
- What if the search result screen had an archiving component. If a search results shows a bunch of old / inactive files, right there tag them for archive and let the backup system move them off prime storage at the next opportunity
- Taking the above two together, the search screen could quickly become a key file-management tool. When searching the archives, the alternative "move back to prime storage" would be a nice option to have
- For archiving purposes, one of the easy solutions is to be able to recognize files that haven't been accesses in a long time (and how long is "a long time" is probably a debatable subject). One of the ironies is that backing up a file touches it, so the date of last access is the same as the date of the last backup. Backup needs to leave the date of last access alone. As does search! Finding a file in a search result should not actually touch the file. This is probably true of most search solutions. Can we force the archive and dearchiving to leave access date alone as well?
I'm looking forward to the day of self-cleaning storage and easy retrieval of important information and auto-archiving of less-important information. Until then, an search-aware backup and a backup-aware search are good steps in the right direction.
Next: Referrals
