Tony's Tips - Backups

(They're seldom done as well as they should be!)

So when was the last time you did a backup on your computer? Last week? Last month? If so, at least you've done a backup. Those horror stories about folks losing their disk drives to failure; computers stolen; viruses wiping out information - they're all true. Everyone has preached about doing backups and everybody means well but it just doesn't quite get done.

A good backup scheme consists of: organizing your data files; setting up a convenient backup scheme; and ensuring that some of your backups are kept in a separate building from your computer.

CD ROMs/Diskettes are *CHEAP* compared to the data on them. That is the time spent rekeying information and the inevitable errors which will happen. As well as the delay in getting your invoices out the door again. Diskettes are also relatively fragile compared to hard drives. These days I wouldn't even recommend diskettes.  Instead I'd suggest CD-RWs.  I use decent diskettes, brand name, and still throw out some every month. I always make two backups of databases on freshly formatted diskettes whenever I drive out of town (I'm in rural Alberta and service a large geographical area). A number of times I've discovered one set was bad when I got to the clients. So you should have more than just two sets of diskettes.

If someone is doing regular daily data entry I recommend one set per day of the week labeled Monday, Tuesday, etc. The last two or three days worth go offsite while the oldest two days are being rotated back on site. This way backup can still happen for a day or two if someone is ill or otherwise unavailable. Someone's house is perfectly fine. If there are regular month end processes I then suggest doing several/five month ends worth, again rotating offsite. If no regular month end processes then I suggest performing five weeks worth of "Friday" backups. (Or Monday as it suits)

If doing intermittent entry, such as a clients set in an accountants or someone at home doing books once or twice a month, then I suggest a minimum of five sets. And again, the newest copies must go offsite.

Several times now in the past 17 years I've had to go back three or five sets to retrieve valid files. Not very often but the alternative is far, far worse. In the one case I spent a week rebuilding various files. (It was cold up in Yellowknife that time of the year.)

If the applications permit, such as Simply, Quickbooks, Excel, WordPerfect, etc. I place all my files in a directory called \1work. \1work ("one"work) so it appears at the top of the directory tree list when inside Windows. I make sub directories as appropriate to match your work. You might choose to use different sub-directories for each application, for each client or type of activity. For example, you may choose to have WordPerfect documents in one sub-directory with Excel spread sheets in another and Paradox tables in a third. You may want to choose your clients name as another method. Thirdly, you may choose to have your work files in one sub-directory, home files in another and those of your various service club's files in their own sub-directories. Or any combination of the above as suits.

Then I go into each app and change the preferences/options to point to this \1work directory. (While you're in this area ensure that the auto-save option has been set to ten or twenty minutes. The next time you have a power failure or your child hits the power bar off switch, you will only lose a few minutes work.) Simply and some other apps it remembers the file directory and name you last saved. Many other apps, such as industry specific apps, you have to backup their directory structure.

If it's a file server I get tapes large enough to backup the entire server and make life simpler. After all if the client is big enough to require a file server it will take a consultant days to reload all the software and reconfigure all the settings and little quirks and tweaks which accumulate over time.

If you do have a network then I would suggest the users setup one directory on their system as per the above suggestions. Then once a day or so, at the minimum every week, they copy the entire contents of their directory to a personalized backup directory on the file server. To minimize errors I would recommend that everyone have the backup directory as the same drive letter. However each user has thier own sub directory on the file server to which their network profile points to. I would also recommend making this part of any written employee handbooks and go so far as to make this a condition of employment. In other words, you don't backup your your critical files, you're fired.

Backups *MUST* go offsite to avoid natural (or vandalism, arson or other unnatural) disaster. The Edmonton tornado proved this one as some businesses were very fortunate. In one business their mini-computer lived despite it being on the second floor and the building collapsed around it. Their "off-site" backup was in an adjacent, although separate enough for fire purposes, building but those file cabinets never got swept away to parts unknown. Another business had their safe, about the size of a desk but twice as high, moved several hundred yards and twisted. They had to get hydraulic rams in to straighten it out before they could drill it open. Took about a week or so. (That businesses mini-computer vendor took two weeks to get a new system in. Their corporation has since switched vendors. <grin>)

In addition the safes you get are only 1 (or 2 or whatever) hour fire rated. But this is only for paper which chars at 451 Fahrenheit (as made famous by Ray Bradbury's book). Diskettes & CDRs melt long before this. You can get mini safes which fit inside a regular safe which are designed for diskettes and CDRs. These will work *ALMOST* all of the time. But what if theirs a bad propane train derailment and the firemen are just going to let it burn itself out and your business is right next door. etc., etc., etc. Those exploding propane cars make for spectacular footage on CNN let alone CBC. <grin> So to repeat backups *MUST* go offsite. Or someone uses a front end loader to remove your safe to another locale and drives over your server to get at it. (Hey, those ATM machines are being stolen by front end loader and truck as the prison sentence is a lot lighter than armed robbery.)

Finally, *TEST* the backup. Rename the directories and reload your backup. Or load it onto another computer. Can you still get into your files? Test it every so often. Maybe someone's gone mucking about in the settings and files are no longer being backed up. Always choose the "compare" option to verify that the diskette or CDRs isn't getting old and having some problems which might not otherwise be found.

These days disk space is real cheap so it should be easy to test this on another system. If it's a large server then your hardware vendor should be able to "loan" you a system so you can test your reload. This should include a test work station as well. Or you can go to their office and test things. Do test on a stand alone system so that there is no chance of someone "siphoning" your files and perusing data after you're gone. Also reformat the hard drives of the server before you leave or, once finished and you've deleted your files use Norton Utilities or similar utilities to "security" wipe the space the files took.

Copyright 1994-98 Tony Toews

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