1. What you should be doing about data backup and why?
2. Fine electro-mechanical devices to backup.
3. Meant to do it!
4. Once Bitten.
5. Backup, a mistaken or confused name.
6. What do you need to do today to start a backup plan or backup program?
7. Let’s get organised.
8. Things to save or to backup.
9. Our recommended Backup System.
10. Near worst case scenario. When you most need a backup to restore from.
11. Our own system. How we backup our data.
12. Remember, Backup, start today.

1. Why do a data backup? What you should be doing and why? Computers always go perfectly. Right? What would you do without your PC? Computers can and do fail usually at the worst possible time. They may get stolen, trashed or crash. Most of us deal with the problems as and when they occur. There are times though, when a little bit of planning and forethought pays big dividends.

2. Fine electro-mechanical devices. The hard drive in your computer has both electronic and mechanical components that work with very fine tolerances where the head literally flies a fraction of a millimeter above the disks fast spinning surface. Measurements a fraction of a human hair thickness are not unusual. So bumping or dropping them or having PC power problems causes the components to literally crash and may result in irreparable damage.

3. Meant to do it! Most business people and many home users are aware of the need to Backup (or copy, in easy terms) their information to another place for safe keeping. After failures they often say ‘I meant to do it but never made the time.’

4. Once Bitten. Every day before they walk out of the office they’ll religiously run or at least start the backup going. In the morning they’ll check and make sure all went Ok with the Backup and look at any errors reported.

5. Backup, a mistaken or confused name! Simply put, Data Backup is the ability to recreate or restore the system you had working before the PC failure or loss. It may be called Copy, Save, Burn, Write. Unfortunately the word Backup is often used different ways. And means different things in different places! Bookkeeping software typically prompts you to backup your data (the company accounts and ledgers, in other words). But the backup is usually on the PC not another disk or computer. So if that computer goes missing, then the company bookkeeping info is gone too. You need to do this type of data Backup for bookkeeping and company client lists. But there’s more to do. Make a note where it goes to so you can Backup or copy it to another disk, CD, ZIP or Flash device you can take home.

6. What do you need to do today? Simple. Work out what you use your computers for that you simply couldn’t do without if it wasn’t there tomorrow. Would your business or personal relationships STOP without the ability to re-create the computer info you’re using? Please. Take a minute to read the full story below.

7. Let’s get organised. You’ll need: - any equipment and software to make the backup; a plan to follow to do it regularly; to backup what you should; to store it somewhere safe; to write down the backups done; reminders to do it next time; most of all the patience to wait and do it whenever it’s due. Lastly, it should be tested that you can recover from disaster if it ever occurs.

8. Things to save. Information to Backup should include Documents; Spreadsheets; Bookkeeping & Transaction data; Address Books; Lists; Emails; Personal information, Photos; Downloaded Programs and Licenses; Favorites; Special things; Internet & Email settings; Regulatory matters. Many of these items are irreplaceable, so they should be safeguarded.

9. Our recommended backup system. Two copies, one at your place and one at a friends place. Small Backup, things that change frequently, done daily. Big Backup, total Backup of your PC because the info is organised in a disorganized sort of way, spread over the hard drive in hard to find places, done weekly or monthly. More than one PC? If you have more than one PC you may need to re-think and re-organise where information is stored in the computers. A central point for all company data is easier to manage and Backup than data in all the odd places on the computer. You may investigate ‘synchronizing’ data so it’s naturally on more than one PC.

10. Near worst case scenario. If the Hard drive fails the information may be recoverable. But it’s a very expensive job by the professionals. Occasionally one of our customers has needed to retrieve data from a dead hard drive. We recommend a particular company who has always managed to recover the data, but there’s a lot of lost time and un-necessary expense especially when compared to the simple smart solution where you take all the necessary precautions and do the backup first.

We hope you never see one of these errors:- an MYOB fatal error 1199 as one of our customers did recently. It translates to the data file causing this error is definitely unusable and irrepairable. It can only be fixed by restoring your data from your most recent backup. (Do you have a recent Backup?) or HAL.DLL is missing or corrupt. It translated (in this case) to the Windows folder has disappeared. Anything at all that was stored in the windows folder is GONE. Windows needs to be re-installed from the original media (CD), Updated and Settings restored from a recent backup. Occasionally we (you or I) will start working on a document or data file and have a little accident. Accidents happen to us all occasionally. The simplest way is often to simply restore from the most recent backup, or waste a lot of productive time just getting things back to the way before we commenced, and made the accident. Just imagine what the worst case would be!

11. Our own system. How we backup. Pixel ITT has these systems in place. Daily, MYOB, when closing company data the data integrity is checked and Zipped up on the C Drive. It takes about 3 minutes.

Monday, 9am, Customer database and documents, Zipped into one file on C Drive. Takes 5 to 10 minutes at the start of day.

Monday to Friday, 9.50pm, Automatic Backup using XXCopy Pro of My Documents Folder which includes, MYOB, Customer data, Documents, saved to a redundant (older) PC as a file server, 5 minutes unattended. Older PC must be turned on and available on the office network.

Monday to Friday, 10pm, Automatic Unattended Backup of daily data important to business, MYOB, Customer data, Documents, Security info saved to CD, 3 to 5 minutes usually unattended.

Every 2nd Saturday, 2 secondary PC’s, Full incremental backup, to CD on main PC. Takes 10 to 20 minutes attended.

Every 4th Saturday, Main PC, Full incremental backup to CD on main PC, takes 60 to 120 minutes attended.

What’s missing in our backup system? Off-site backup copy could be more recent but has the main ingredients of our business in a workable version. Backup test has been performed to restore secondary PC’s only. The main PC will be done when time permits or it becomes necessary.

12. Remember, Backup, start today. We tell our customers, whether they're small business clients or home computer users at every chance we get, to backup, somehow, but backup regardless. We've all got cd burners and cd writing software these days, but still most clients do not have a recent data backup or use the backup software that came with their computer. If the worst disaster happens, we're called in to clean up the situation and regretfully tell the customer if they didn't backup before the computer was stolen or broken there's really nothing we can do to ease their pain whether it's business critical data or data like home pictures and email address contact lists.

So BACKUP, Backup, backup just do a BACKUP.

Greg Martyn is a partner in Pixel ITT providing computer service and support in the St George and Sutherland area south of Sydney Australia. Pixel ITT also supply software for backup, internet security, antivirus and firewall in Australia. Greg Martyn has been in a technicial role since 1967, and until 2000 worked for OTC and Telstra. Pixel ITT use and recommend the software we sell including EMCDantz Retrospect Pro which is our main backup tool. Trial software and more info is available through http://www.pixelitt.com.au.

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