Backup Best Practices

I think the average business owner understands that backups are important. However, the average business owner is busy. They may not have time to lay out a detailed backup plan.

First, establish that you MUST backup. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? However, a large number of businesses don’t have adequate backup solutions or don’t backup at all!

Here are some startling statistics:

• 6% of all PCs will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year. Given the number of PCs used in US businesses in 1998, that translates to approximately 4.6 million data loss episodes. At a conservative estimate, data loss cost US businesses $11.8 billion in 1998. (The Cost Of Lost Data, David M. Smith)
• 30% of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year. 70% fail within five years. (Home Office Computing Magazine)
• 31% of PC users have lost all of their files due to events beyond their control.
• 34% of companies fail to test their tape backups, and of those that do, 77% have found tape back-up failures.
• 60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within 6 months of the disaster.
• 93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. 50% of businesses that found themselves without data management for this same time period filed for bankruptcy immediately. (National Archives & Records Administration in Washington)
• American business lost more than $7.6 billion as a result of viruses during first six months of 1999. (Research by Computer Economics)
• Companies that aren’t able to resume operations within ten days (of a disaster hit) are not likely to survive. (Strategic Research Institute)

Sobering, isn’t it? So, I think we have established you MUST backup.

Second, select an appropriate backup method. For a single user this might be as easy as copying files to a CD or DVD. For companies, tape backup might be in order. External hard drives can work well  for larger amounts of data. Of course, none of these are off-site backup solutions unless you physically move the media. Online backup becomes a great option for backing up information and storing it offsite. The key here is do something. If you really want to be careful, do more then one of these things.

Thirdly, test your backups. Don’t assume that your backup is doing what you expect.  How can you test backups? Here are a few ways:

• Check the backup logs. Any backup system worth its salt will have logs. Check them for errors. Make sure the system is backing up the files you expect it to.
• Run a small test by creating a test file. Let the system backup the test file. Delete the file and try a restore. You might be surprised at the results.
• Update a file and see if it shows up in the next backup with the updated time stamp. Restore it and see if your updates are there.
• Check the backup contents consistently, especially early on in the life of the system.

If you follow one or more suggestions for testing your backup you will be ahead of the pack.

So, this is a small list of “best practices” for data backup. Hopefully with a little diligence and effort business owners will not have to become one of the statistics.

ArrowQuick has a great online backup solution available to businesses and users. We can also help you manage your legacy backup systems. Of course, if you don’t have a system in place we would love to help you. Contact us at our Oskaloosa office with questions.