Backing Up Your Data

Backing up simply means transferring the information from the computer hard disk (in the computer) onto an external storage medium (floppy disks, tape or removable cartridge drive. We include some suggestions on how to back up here using the software that came with your backup device or the Backup Program included with Windows. We cannot overstate the following:

Everyone Will Lose Critical Data At Some Point; Usually When They Need It Most.

Do you understand? If you do not treat data backup with the same seriousness of intent that you use in any other no excuses business task (such as preparing taxes or paying your employees) you may as well pack it in right now. Has it occurred to you how devastating it would be if your computer’s lost their data? The good news is, this however: data loss is the only major business disaster that can be made 100% survivable.

If you do it right.

Strategies

There are two main backup strategies with which you should be familiar:

• Incremental Backup only those files which have been changed since the last backup.

• Complete  Backup/restore all selected files regardless of when they were last backed up.

We recommend that you perform a complete backup of their data each time you backup, unless you have extremely large data files. This ensures that you have a safe copy of everything relevant to your business after each backup.

To save time, however, you can use the Incremental method. Backups are quicker with this method since fewer files will be backed up. The disadvantages are that you will need to keep a separate set of backup disks for each incremental backup between complete backups and that if you need to do a restore, you may need to restore files from all backup sets since your last complete backup.

An example should make the reasons clear:

Example:  On Monday, you perform a Complete Backup on the files in your word processing directory (20 letters). On Tuesday you type and save ten letters into your word processor, on Wednesday you type five letters, and on Thursday two others. At the end of the day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday you performed an incremental backup which means you should now have four sets of backup disks:

 

Monday      Complete      20 letters

Tuesday     Incremental  10 letters

Wednesday Incremental   5 letters

Thursday    Incremental   2 letters

           ————-

            37 letters

 

On Friday, you accidentally erase all your documents! No problem, you’ll simply restore your data. Unfortunately you’ll need to do four restores, not just one. Looking at the table you’ll see that you must start with Monday’s backup, restore it, and then do the same starting with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in order to retrieve the latest versions of all thirty seven documents. Also there is the possibility that one of the disks in one of the sets has gone bad, which would render one or more files out of date.

 

The incremental method can be hard to manage successfully because such a backup will not contain the older files which have not changed. If you need to restore data you may have to restore both the last complete backup, and then the incremental backup to make sure that you have restored all your data.

So it is up to you to make sure that when you restore Simple Accounting data you are restoring files which were updated at the same time. Because of the complexity of an Incremental Backup system, we recommend backing up all Simple Accounting data files every time, unless you have a very large amount of data to manage.

Technical Note: In order to do an incremental backup, you need some way to determine which files have changed since the last backup. Windows stores what is called an Archive Attribute in each disk’s directory of files. This is sort of a switch which is turned on whenever a file is changed in any way. Most backup programs turns this attribute off for each file as it backs them up. In this way, the program can determine which files have been changed since the last backup.

 

Organizing Your Backups

You will need more than one, and preferably several,. set of disks. And you must rotate them. Disks go bad, just like anything else. This way, even if one of your backups is bad, you’ll lose at most the data entered since the previous backup. However if you backup to only a single set of disks and that backup fails, your data is lost. The more sets of disks, the less would be your data loss. For example, we keep complete backups for the past three weeks. Why? Because more often than not, you don’t just need protection against data loss, but against bad data.

For example, let’s say that an important file is accidentally erased on Monday, but you don’t notice that it is missing until the following Friday. If you have only a couple of sets of disks or tapes, you will more than likely have overwritten each of your tapes with the bad version of the file before you even noticed that there was a problem.

Also, you should keep a log of your backup schedule which looks something like the one at right. Those who do not follow a proper routine religiously are destined to lose data at some point.

DATE  TYPE DISK BATCH  NAME

05/14/90  Com   A   RGA

05/15/90  Inc.   B   JRP

05/16/90  Inc.   B   JRP

05/17/90  Inc.   B   JRP

05/18/90  Com.  A   EDR

Finally, we also recommend that you make another set of backup disks with complete Simple Accounting data every week and store that backup set off-site. This is the only way to ensure that all your data is secure in case of theft or catastrophe.

Choosing Media

The type of disks you use for your backups, and the way that you care for them is very important. There are currently five kinds of media to choose from:

• Floppy Disks

• Recordable CD

• Removable Cartridges (Jaz®, Zip®, SparQ®, etc.)

• Tape

Floppy Diskettes are no longer practical for most applications as they hold too little data. Tapes can store a lot of data and are inexpensive, but tend to be very slow. Recordable CDs are reasonably quick and cheap, we strongly recommend these for weekly backups. Removable drives are fast and have become very reasonably priced. They represent a real alternative to tape because of their speed.

Whichever media you choose, please keep these points in mind:

• Never use cheap media. Purchase media only from well known, reliable manufacturers. This is not an advertisement for any particular vendor, it is just good advice. The bargain media that are so popular these days should not be trusted with your valuable data. There is a reason that they cost so little, and it isn’t good will towards mankind. The quality control that goes into the national brands just isn’t there for cheap-o’s so steer clear of them. While they may be fine for casual use, you cannot trust them for really important data.

• Convenience Matters! Don’t use a backup method that takes forever. If the backup procedure takes a long time, then that means that the restore will take a long time which will drive you crazy when you need your data back!

• Don’t use a medium that requires too many tapes or cartridges. Get enough capacity to fit most everything you need on one or two tapes/diskettes.

• Make certain that the software is easy to use and automated. Backup is not usually uppermost in people’s minds. If you make it too difficult, you reduce compliance.

• More data is lost from companies who have a backup system and don’t use it then from those who don’t have a backup system. Painful truth: If it ain’t easy to use, people won’t use it.

• Never throw away the drive and software from any backup device without transferring the data to your new storage medium. If you back up your data to a tape today and then switch to another media next year, what good is the tape you made?

• Replace your media at least once a year. Even if it appears to be in good shape. Disks and tapes take a lot of punishment, spinning around as they do. A worn out tape or disk will fail when you least expect it.

Errors

If you encounter an error during a file copy, it generally is best to abort the backup/restore and begin again. Usually an error occurs because of a bad target disk, or a hardware failure. Although the program attempts to detect errors before copying data, sometimes errors are just not possible to catch. If the problem is a bad target disk, try another disk when backing up. Later, run the Scandisk utility on the target disk, and on the source disk to isolate the sore spot. You are often able to make a tape or cartrige perfectly usable simply by re-formatting. If it is your hard disk that is giving you trouble, you will need to take immediate action as this can be a serious problem for all your programs.