Backups

Backups. You know you should do them. But for some reason, a lot of people don't.

Think about your home PC. Think about all those pictures, tax documents, works of prose, customized settings, and all the stuff you have put on it. How much time would it take to get back all of your photographs? Impossible, right? What about that 2005 tax return when Uncle Sam is asking for "clarification?"

Now, if you are a business owner, your data has actual cash value. How long can you do business without the data on your system(s)? What would happen if you suddenly lost all your customer data?

The point is that there are many reasons to perform regular backups and no reason not to.

Backups are not hard to do, they no longer require sophisticated and expensive hardware, and they are good insurance. I'm going to discuss a couple different methods for accomplishing this very important task in the world of computers.

Going back to Genesis
In the beginning your disk was formless and void, and some nice person formatted it and put useful software on it.

Most importantly, for all computer users, is to retain your source CD's. Most new PC's have shipped with a "System Restore" CD for the last several years. This CD contains the operating system and all other software that was installed on your PC when you ordered it from the factory. There may be other accompanying disks such as driver disks, application CD's, etc. If you have a drawer or box where you keep all your computer disks, do not keep these disks in that box!

Keep these source CD's separate from the disks you paw through every day. Keep them in their original cases or sleeves, and put them away for a rainy day. If you have a safe with your important papers, put them in there. The point being that you want to avoid handling, scratching, and/or losing them altogether. These are going to be a vital part of your parachute, so keep them safe.

Home Backups
Now, for the home user, backing up your PC can seem daunting. It brings to mind images of expensive tape drives and specialized software. I'm here to tell you the good news; those days are past.

Windows XP, Vista, and 7 all include a backup utility. In XP, it's in Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools. The backup program starts in a Wizard mode and will walk you through the process. You can choose to have it back up your documents and settings, every users documents and settings, all information on the computer, and there is a "let me choose" option for us high-controllers out there.

If you have your source disks that came with the machine and any software you purchased and installed, then all you need to back up is your documents and settings (and those of other users if it's a shared machine with multiple user IDs). As long as you have kept your important files inside the hierarchy of "My Documents" and/or your desktop, this form of backup will get those files and back them up. If you've taken to saving your files in special folders you created like C:\Letters, C:\Finances, then you are going to need to choose the "Let me choose" option and select those folders individually.

Next you will have to tell the utility where to save your backup and what to call it. Backups should be stored on external hard drives or CD's/DVD's. Imagine a disk crash event and the feeling you get the moment you realize that your backup file was on the disk that just started smoking and threw that shower of sparks.

Ungood.

Using removable media allows you first of all, to have your data in a separate place from where the fault occurs that causes you to need it. It also allows for an easy "grab-n-go" in the event of some kind of disaster that requires you to evacuate.

I recommend a USB 2.0 external hard drive that is at least as big as your internal disk. Data transfer is fast, you won't run out of space, there's no messing with swapping out optical media every time it gets full, and you can unplug it when the backup is complete and store it with your source disks and important papers.

If you have followed this advice and find yourself needing to recreate your computer, all you have to do is boot from your "System Restore" disks and let them put all the programs and the operating system back on the new drive. Next, start the backup utility and select "restore files" and put all your documents back, and voila, good as new (and probably running faster!).

Vista (and Windows 7) users click The button previously known as Start, All Programs, Maintenance, Backup and Restore. Once it starts, click "Change Settings" to begin. This version of the utility is a little nicer. It allows scheduling a regularly recurring backup, and also has options for a system recovery disk and a disk image backup.

Speaking of images...
Disk images are the next step in data protection. Where a regular file backup requires you to install the operating system and software (and backup program if you made your backup with a third-party product) before you restore your files, a disk image creates a snapshot of the entire disk in its current condition. Basically an exact duplicate of the drive, in a file. Sure, it's a BIG file...but if you have a disk as big as, or bigger than your internal drive, it's not a problem.

Programs that create image backups often have an option to create a system recovery disk, like the above mentioned Vista/7 version of Microsoft's backup utility. The recovery disk allows you to boot from it and restore your image directly to a blank disk. Eject the CD and restart the computer and you wouldn't know the difference.

The trade-off between an image backup and a file backup is speed. Obviously the image takes considerably longer. In exchange for that headache, you get convenience of a one-stop deal. If you can schedule the backup to occur overnights, the image may be the way to go.

One important note on Imaging. A disk image can not be restored onto a hard disk in a computer with different hardware. It will only work on the same machine it was taken from because of drivers and hardware specifications, so don't make an image and then try to restore it to a different PC.

Business Backups
If your business runs on one computer with simple records kept in the My Documents folder, you can use one of the above methods to backup your data.

Most businesses don't run that simply though. At the least there is usually something like Quickbooks or Microsoft Office Accounting, or some other way of managing accounts. Complexity only grows from there. Larger outfits run databases and web applications and employ multiple machines to accomplish all their daily tasks.

In this kind of environment it is impossible to get everything covered, so you have to set priorities. #1 will no doubt be your accounting and customer relationship applications, #2, any other vital business apps, and #3, the desktop computers.

Starting at the bottom of the list, a good practice is to set up your environment to be as homogeneous as possible. Workstations should all be the same model computer with the same internal hardware. That way you can install the operating system and all the applications, then take a baseline image, and if any one of them crashes, you can restore all of them from the one image.

Moving up to business applications, often this comes down to a case-by-case evaluation. Business systems should be backed daily, at least backing up the changed data every day, and getting a full backup of everything at least once a week.

Business systems should also be backed up to multiple removable media devices that can be removed from the premises. Media should be rotated through the week and taken off site to ensure data safety in case of a building disaster. You can pay for a service to come and pick up your backups, or you can take them home with you. It all depends on your comfort level and budget, but you should keep them off site. Don't leave them in your car though.

For any business environments with centralized servers providing applications, a tape device is probably going to be the way to go. Tapes are very portable and dependable. They stand up well to the greatly increased handling that they will endure as a business backup device. They are also fast and can hold a lot of data, as tape drive technology has made advances right along all other technology.

Although I have really only scratched the surface of this deep topic, I hope this is helpful information for you. I hope you decide to start backing up your important data. It would be a shame to lose those vacation pictures...but it might provide a good excuse to go back!

Schreibnet Technology LLC can help you implement a backup strategy that works for you or your small business. Feel free to leave comments with questions you may have, or contact me via email to scott at schreibnet dot com.