Apart from file-level backup, there is also the block-level backup, better known as image backup. It is an advanced backup method that creates a copy of your whole system.

Two types of backup – item level and image level – have different strengths, and it’s possible to tap the best of both.

Where things start to differ is how that basic bit-level information forms part of the bigger picture, and it’s here where the key differences between block, file and object storage emerge.

Block-level virtualization is usually just called storage virtualization, and serves applications such as database software that need block-level access to data.

We look at the three basic ways that storage accesses data – via file, block and object – as well as the ways in which the rise of the cloud and distributed systems have brought changes to them.