Keeping It Covered
We all know the risks, inconvenience and possible loss of income due to technology failure, but how many take regular backups of your most important data or more importantly check the backups actually work?
In a busy business the backup process can be one of the first things that gets overlooked. It takes time and as you’re about to close up for the day the last thing you want to do is press the button to secure the work since last time you did a backup.
Technology will always fail at the most annoying time and frequently you’ll come back after a weekend when nothing has been used since you turned it off but something has changed.
One suggestion we’ve seen to combat these usual problems is to start a routine of backing up mid-week. This avoids that Friday feeling of rushing off but will give you the security of having covered the week so far.
A couple of other important tips on backups.
- Don’t overwrite a previous backup as if something has corrupted between backups you’ll just replace the clean copy with a bad version.
- Test restoring backups to make sure they actually work.
- Finally having got your backups, make sure they are secure and not just on the desk next to the pc. If you do leave them in the office, keeping them in a fireproof box would be good or better still keep them off site.
Having a backup will keep you covered for loss of data. Loss of machines is another question we’ll cover in a later blog.
