What?

Computer backup is any process that makes a safe copy of valuable files.  The question "What files are valuable?" is typically answered with the simple response 'Every file a user creates'!   On Windows systems this typically corresponds to the 'My Documents' folder.  And, thinking about it, that's clearly where the value is!  Even in the worst case, it's probably possible to get old program files on CD-ROMs, via downloads, or even by just buying those programs again, and then re-installing them program-by-program.

However the files and data that users create are much harder and much more expensive to replace.  So user-created files represent the 'high priority' target in any backup system.

Computer backup hardware and software systems are occasionally confused with backup systems for computer power, also known as 'un-interruptible power supply' systems.  Backup for insuring power requirements is also an important decision, however in this guide we've focused only on hardware and software backup systems for files and data.

Disaster Recovery is a specialized and typically separate backup consideration.  While normal backups are aimed at recovering selected files, disaster recovery backup is typically aimed at completely restoring a working system, starting with a blank hard disk.  In this guide we've not focused on all the considerations relating to disaster recovery, but a good regular backup is an excellent start at toward composing a larger disaster recovery plan.  Some of the products mentioned below do have disaster recovery features that can be implemented in addition to 'normal' backup features.

Why?

Computer backup is something that everyone knows is important, but too many of us only learn to do it better or consistently after a tragedy.  So we'll presume without further explanation, that readers of this guide agree the 'Why?' is obvious.

In 2005 a client converted to a new accounting system in January.  In July their network server crashed with an un-bootable hard disk.  Unfortunately the backup system we proposed for the network a couple years earlier had been put off for lack of funds, and there was an assumption by all involved (us too!) that the accounting system's backup was configured and working.  Unfortunately the accounting system backup was NOT properly implemented.  The end of this 'sad story' is that after paying a $150 evaluation fee for the hard disk, it was still unrecoverable, and the accounting system had to be re-initialized from zero. A painful lesson on the importance of reliable backup!

How?

There are many opinions about what kind of backup is best.  We'll try to touch on some major options, some of the popular brand choices, and our own preferences from 20+ years of consulting with small business clients.

First our advice for some backup rules-of-thumb:

1. It must be simple! Complex backup schemes tend to be too much trouble to use, or worse they're too complex to actually work when its time to restore from a backup.
2. It must generate several slices of your data! Backing up just the files as they were yesterday or last week is NOT enough.  Problems with files come unexpectedly and sometimes files from Tuesday, or a week before last will, be the better choice.
3. It must run itself!  Backups that need to be attended by humans more than once-a-day, even to change disks or CD's, etc. are destined to fail at least occasionally.  The more automatic the better!

Using these 'Rules-of-Thumb', here are our current recommendations for designing a solution for most any small business:

Large USB Drives

Recent changes in the marketplace have lead us to update our recommendations and existing client implementations.  For most clients we now acquire and implement an array of at least two large USB drives (e.g. Western Digital MyBook providing 1 TB for under $100) that can be used as the backup target with folders (Mon., Wed, Fri on one drive and Tues, Thurs. Sat. on the other) to receive daily full backups and to offer protection against a single USB drive failing  Some clients have even added a third drive for quarterly archive backups.

Cobian Backup software

To make the backups work automatically and E-mail us with any problems we increasingly prefer the FREE (e.g. to download and use) 'Cobian Backup' software which runs on everything from Windows XP and Windows 7 to Windows 2003 Server.  It's intuitive, and able to perform consistently.  In the case of a USB drive, the job of backup software like Cobian is simply to copy files at the scheduled time, and maybe to do a bit of file compression in the process if desired.  Best of all the completed and uncompressed USB backups can be navigated to like any file on a hard disk, so finding and copying a needed file is VERY EASY!

Cobian will also manage the number of backups to keep and remove the oldest ones when needed.

Online BackUp

This leaves a need to get backups off-site while still aiming toward a totally 'hands-off'  backup solution.  There are many online backup services (We found over 30 in a recent survey before making the following recommendation to a client.) but we've been very impressed with Mozy.

New residential users can get 2GB of backup space for FREE.  That's often more than enough to backup all the files in 'My Documents' as well as other key files in the 'Favorites' and 'Desktop' folders too.  Use this link (www-mozy-com/?code=S33AEH <--copy, paste, and correct) and the Mozy folks will provide another 0.2 GB (A total of 2.2GB) of space just for using the referral we're making here!  (Mozy's $4.95 per month per home-based desktop PC with unlimited storage or about $119 over two years, 'Carbonite' for PC workstations is just a little cheaper at $55 a year unlimited.)

A client using Mozy for a single computer had a hard disk crash just a month after starting with the service.  The disk was replaced and a few hours after requesting the restore file, ALL their work was COMPLETELY recovered.  We think that's quite an endorsement!

Small businesses can work with a reseller like us to get online backup for as little as $5.00 per gigabyte per year.  That's cheap compared to just a couple years ago, and likely to get even cheaper.  Mozy's backup software and process, their regular notifications, automated billing, and the time-slicing tools available to use for file recovery make it a high quality solution.  For now (3/2011) online backup is clearly the way to go!  For more information on this topic see our guide titled: "Choosing an OnLine BackUp Vendor"

Brief comments on other solutions:

There are many other capable backup options for businesses including DVD, USB drives, even USB memory sticks, but none of these easily and cheaply meet our 'rules-of-thumb' criteria above.  We were interested to note that new Dell computers have recently been shipping with a FREE one (1) year subscription their 'DataSafe' online backup service which includes up to 10GB of storage. 

Windows NT Backup - No scheduling facility and not very intuitive.

Small Business Server Backup - Only manages a single backup job and not as intuitive as we'd like.

A great replacement and/or complement to tape or removable cartridge backup (needed for offsite storage) is the addition of a large and cheap USB drive to take the place of some (if not all) the daily backup tapes or cartridges.  You might direct Monday thru Friday backups to a USB drive, and then run a weekend backup tape that can be taken offsite on Monday.

Other solutions including, Travan tape systems, CDs, DVDs, and even 'fixed' hard disk systems have not impressed us.  In each case we've never or gradually stopped using them.

We inherited from another consultant a medium-sized client with a backup to disk system that involves the use of just two USB connected fixed-disk drives.  Unfortunately these drives alone violated many of our rules-of-thumb, not the least of which is that they suffer from occasional problems recognizing a changed USB device just after being switched.  We've now begun to upgrade to a more reliable system, that offers more restore options too! 

Some final thoughts on 'How' to accomplish backups day-to-day:

Remembering the rules-of-thumb again we prefer to set up systems to operate with NO or at most just one visit a day.  The the latter it's ideally to change the already labeled current day of the week tape or cartridge to the one for the next day.  Most of our clients who still use this approach have these clearly labeled (<--Don't under estimate the value of  labeling tapes, cartridges or folders with actual labels, e.g. 'Monday' as well as with a matching names in software.) for the week days as well as some 'extras' to replace an occasional Friday's tape or cartridge that is pulled out of the rotation for offsite and long-term access.  It's not hard to imagine a system of inexpensive tapes, cartridges, and/or USB drive folders, where after a full year of operation the available backups include:

• 4 each of the quarter-end Fridays
• 4 each of the weeks-ending for the current month's Fridays
• 4 each of the current weekdays for the current week (Mon. to Thurs. = 4)

All that backup sliced through time with just 12+ tapes, cartridges or USB drive folders, makes being able to recover needed files more-and-more likely.  Asuming you have two (2) 1-TB USB drives you can imagine it all working even if each of these 12 backups required as much as 160+ GB.

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