How to make sure you never lose your company’s data

Each year, hundreds of businesses lose their entire data. Often years of records, accounts and customer files are lost due to accidental deletions, damaged hard disks, stolen hardware and many other reasons. But no company should EVER lose their data. Why? Because by simply backing up in an effective manner you ensure you never need lose even your very latest work.

Backing up your system regularly can – literally – make or break your entire working business system. Simply put, if you are using computers for your daily record keeping and transactional work and you lose this data your business grinds to a halt. If a virus hits your system or your hard disk crashes beyond recovery or someone has damaged your entire database with an accidental deletion, then the only method of recovering all your work and records is to restore it from your backup files.

To make sure you're never placed in this predicament here are seven simple tips:

1. Install a proven, reliable backup system. A well known brand will give you at least 3 years warrantee should anything go wrong. Also choosing the appropriate hardware and software for your particular needs is essential for backing up reliably. Here is what we advise.

• Hardware - There are three different types of drive, which will backup your data; ZIP drives, CD ROM (an optical drive) and tape drives. A ZIP drive can store 250 megabytes (mb), CDs 650 mb and tapes can store 12000 mb= 12 gigabytes (gigs) of data. A small business will usually need between 5-6 gigs to complete a full backup. Taking into consideration that you need to leave room for growth we recommend a tape drive. This will also allow you to store all your data on one tape making it easier to manage
• Software - for maximum ease of use and reliability look for these three features:
  • One; you should install a system that will allow you to schedule automatic regular backups. The backup process is then automated (so that you can backup at nights to insure you don’t slow down your system during the day while it is being used). All you will need to do is change the tape everyday.
  • Two; your system should have the ability to compress your data as it is being backed up. This allows you to store approx 30% more information on each tape -- usually enough to backup most small companies entire data. Backing up on one tape also saves you the nightmare of having to use two or three or more tapes which means firstly your backup has to be made and secondly if one of the tapes in the series becomes corrupted the whole series becomes useless and thirdly makes backing up and recovering data easier and faster. CLICK HERE for advice on the correct hardware or software for your system.
  • Three; backing up to one tape (it won’t work with more than one) also allows the right software to establish your backup has been successful by sending you confirmation email

     

2. We advise you to backup all your data EVERY night. This ensures your latest daily work is always fully backed up should you ever need it.

Most companies we encounter do not backup every night. I urge you to! Imagine if you lost even one or two days work, how disruptive and annoying it would be. The solution? Backup every night!

3. Surprisingly, most companies don’t backup to a server. Why? Mainly because they are concerned about staff having access to their personnel files or management information.

Here’s the solution: use the security function on your server (most good servers have a security function these days) to restrict unauthorized access.

A large national company we worked with allowed their staff to save all their work and company data on their individual PC’s. This company had 98 PC’s – which at the time were on average 5 years old – in constant daily use. That was the problem: the lifespan of a hard disk tends to be approx 5 years. As a result, they had several hard disk failures virtually every month. Because each staff member was backing up their work individually and irregularly, every time a hard disk failed a lot of work was unrecoverably lost. The first thing we did with this client was install a central backup system. We also suggested they make one person responsible. We recommend you do this if you have anymore than 5 PC’s. Check your backups daily. If they fail, find out why immediately. Re-run the backup if necessary.

4. Weekly or at least monthly, run a test to verify that you can actually restore your data from your backup tapes.

5.  Keep your backup tape(s) off site and/or in a fire proof safe. A little while ago, one of our clients had their offices broken into and their server stolen. Their server-contained valuable files that were under contract. At the end of the contract these files had to be handed over to their clients or the company would have to pay – £270,000 as a penalty. Fortunately the backup tapes were kept off site and the data was quickly reinstalled. Had the tapes been kept in the company offices they might well have been stolen too!

6. Buy and use a cleaning tape. These increase the reliability of your backups as they stop the buildup of residue (ferrous oxide) on the tape and tape heads. This residue can corrupt the data on your tapes. Cleaning tapes also increase the life of your tape from 6 months to 2 years by keeping them dust and dirt free. (Your warrantee probably asks you to regularly clean your tape drive. Amazingly, the manufacturers can detect if you haven’t used a cleaning tape regularly. Make sure you do!

7. Tapes have a finite life of approx 20 backups. Use them more than this and reliability lessons to the point where your data will be corrupted.

CLICK HERE if you would like some free advice on what hardware or software will best suit your system and requirements.

CLICK HERE if you would like us to send you a FREE spreadsheet to assist you in your backup routine...

IT DEPARTMENT UK LTD

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