Backing Up Your Data

It's 9:00am and payroll has to be out by noon when you discover your hard drive has failed. Or maybe you emptied that recycle bin a bit prematurely. Hopefully you have a recent backup available. It is estimated that 6% of all PCs will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year. The average cost of each data loss is estimated to be around $2,500¹. Whether you are a home user or small business the loss of data can be devastating.

What you need to perform backups:

• A storage device with removable media such as a DVD burner, external hard drive, DAT tape drive, or an online backup service. Whatever you choose it should be able to store your daily backed up data on a single DVD, disk, or tape. For a full system backup you may need multiple DVDs, disks, or tapes.

• You will also need backup scheduling software. There is a backup utility that comes with all Windows operating systems and can be found at Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Backup. Many times backup software is also provided when you buy a storage device such as an external hard drive or DVD burner.

Types of backups:

• Full System - backs up everything regardless of whether or not it was backed up before. Takes the longest to perform but provides quickest restore. Not practical to perform every day.

• Incremental - backs up all files created or modified since the last full backup or incremental backup. Takes the shortest to perform and the longest to restore from.

• Differential - backs up all files created or modified since the last full backup. Time increases each day, shorter to perform and recover from than a full backup overall but longer than an incremental.

• Any data (documents, images, spreadsheets, accounting data) that is specific to you or your business that cannot be recreated without time and effort on your part.

• Any software you purchased via a download where you do not have original installation disks.

What you do not need to back up:

• The software and OS (operating system) that is installed on you computer that you have the original installation disks for. You can always recover by reinstalling the software.

Backup Strategies:

• Have backup automatically scheduled to run using you backup software.

• Use more than one tape or disk and rotate from day to day, week to week, and month to month. A common secure backup rotation method called the grandfather method uses 20 media sets. 4 media sets for each day Mon - Thu rotated every week, 4 media sets for each Fri of the month rotated every month, and 12 media sets for each month rotated every year.

• Periodically make a full system backup, say once a month. Then make incremental or differential backups on a daily basis between full backups.

• Make a copy of all software installations disks and store them in a safe place preferably offsite.

• Have an offsite storage plan for backup media. Use friends, relatives, employees, safety deposit boxes if you have to (100 miles away is recommended). At a minimum use a safe location that can be locked and is fireproof.

• Have documentation in place for performing a restore and perform periodic fire drills to test your restore process and media.
If you have more than one computer in a networked environment backup data from one computer to the other and vice versa.
• Have more than one backup. Computer to computer and removable media.

• Split your hard drive into 2 drives or purchase a second hard drive. Then segregate your data from your software using the 2 drives. If one drive goes the other may still be accessible. Many viruses attack your C drive boot sector making the C drive unusable. If your data is on the D drive then it is safe.

• Use an online backup service such as Carbonite or Mozy. For a nominal annual or monthly fee an online backup service will backup your data on a daily basis to "the cloud". Some online backup services even offer a minimum amount of online backup storage for free.

According to Murphy Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then. Don't let yourself or your business end up paying dearly for problems that can be easily prevented with a good backup system. Have a backup strategy and regularly verify the integrity of your backups.

1 The Cost of Lost Data, by David M. Smith, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics, Pepperdine University, September 1999.

By Line: Author Gregory Michaels is President of TekTrek Computer Services providing on-site computer services for home and business. For more information email info@tektrekcomputerservices.com or call 303-438-9365.