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Backups Keep Your Computer out of Jeopardy

This article describes simple backup strategies to protect your valuable computer data.

There are no good reasons for not doing regular backups.
Nothing should be allowed to interfere with them.

This is not a game

User 1: "We just had the power go out while I was using my computer. Now, every program screen we bring up has garbage all over. What can we do?"

User 2: " I accidentally wiped out my boss's entire calendar from every PC on the network. What can I do? "

User 3: " All the machines in our office caught a computer virus from a game site we all visited. Now we can't run any of our business programs any more. What can we do?"

If I knew nothing more about their situations, I would tell each user "Go to your backups and restore your files." For users 1 and 2, this would be the most recent backup; user 3 would use an older one made before the infection.

Without backups, there is no easy recovery even to minor data losses. Typically, the user must reinstall programs or re-enter data from scratch. This is error-prone. Some data or functions may never be fully recovered. Businesses have failed because data lost from their computer files could not be restored completely or correctly after a catastrophe.

Not making backups is like going to sea without a life vest, or riding a unicycle on the potholed berm of a busy street. It's like betting everything in Final Jeopardy when you're already sure to win. In more direct language, NOT MAKING BACKUPS IS DANGEROUS AND STUPID.

UPDATE. When this article was first written, backups were something that each computer user had to manage on there own. As computers became networked, that backup function became more centralized. Today we can centralize our backups by saving our files to a remote location over the Internet. This capability is so easy to set up that today there is no excuse for not making backups!

The only caveat: There are many providers of offsite backup services. Some are reputable and some are reliable. You want the intersection of these sets. Do your own research. It's easy to find the ones with the fewest complaints.

backup (noun) 1. A copy of a file, preferably on a physical volume different from the original. If something happens to the original file or volume, the file can be "restored" from its backup copy. Example: "Having a backup of a file means that no matter what happens to the original file, it can be restored." 2. The procedure of making a backup. Example: "Do your backups."

backup (verb) To make a backup; usually, to copy data from hard disk onto a tape or floppy disk. Example: "It's possible to backup just one file, but to save effort you'll probably backup several files at once." The reverse operation is restore.

Backups establish a safety net

Because files change, making backups is an ongoing task. A daily backup provides a daily safety net; a file-destroying disaster will never lose more than one day's work. In some businesses, the volume of work mandates a backup several times a day.

When files are changing quickly, backups go "stale" (out of date) fast. Like produce at the market, backups are usually best when "fresh". But there are two important exceptions.

1. Sometimes files change for the worse. A "bad" change to a file might be a virus infection or an improper close of an accounting month. After a "bad" change, a backup of that file only protects something you don't want anyway.

You may unfortunately not find out that files have gone bad until after they've been backed up. In these cases you'll not want to restore from any such backups.

2. The backup process itself can fail for any number of reasons. The tape or floppy drive might break, the network connection might go down, or your office power might suddenly fail, during the backup itself.

If you're lucky, you'll discover the problem when it occurs. If you aren't, you'll think you have a good backup when you don't have one at all... and then suddenly need it!

How long should you keep your backups?

Most business purposes are served by keeping your files for a year, perhaps 15 months. Your needs may require a longer retention. And if you are involved in litigation, you may be required to retain all records and documents pursuant to your business that were created during a certain time.

Backup retention: more choices

With remote backup services, the biggest (and probably only) choice you have to make is how long you want to keep your backups.

If you are still doing your own backups, however, you have more choices. The rest of the article discusses the issues that will require your attention.

If you are backing up to a resuable medium, like tape or disk, you have to decide whether to overwrite your backups. In the past most most shops eventually did, because it was too costly to use a backup tape or disk only once. A tape would be reused, and the old backup data on it lost, after it reached a certain age.

Nowadays, many shops back up to writable CD; it is not reusable media but CD's are very inexpensive. The backups can be kept indefinitely.

Backup generations for reusable media

If you are reusing your backup medium, you should keep several sets or generations of backups. Backups can be arranged from oldest to "youngest"; staying with the family-oriented theme, we call the second-newest backup the "parent" and the third-newest the "grand-parent". It’s best to keep at least three generations of backups. In your particular business, you may have reasons to retain data for a longer period of time.

Have at least two backup generations; never rely on only one. If you always back up to the same disk or tape volume, overwriting your last backup, it’s only a little better than not doing any backups at all. If a file ever changes for the worse, but you don't catch it before it gets copied to your (only) backup volume, you've not only lost your good original file; you’ve also lost your backup. Or if something goes wrong during the backup, your one good backup could be overwritten by a bad one and you may not even know until you need to do a restore. A third generation gives you an extra backup in case two generations are overwritten before you learn about and correct the problem.

More about backups

Most backup software can tell whether a file has been changed since the last time it was backed up, making possible another option for the user: a backup of changed files only. This bypasses routine backups on files that never change--eliminating a lot of needless backing up--but it also requires a little more backup management. It also complicates restore operations: if a given file wasn't changed prior to a particular backup, then you won't find that file on that backup. You may have to spend some time searching for the backup volume that has the specific file that you want to restore.

Here is a generic backup plan for reusable media which is a good sample strategy for situations without extra requirements: Make a weekly backup of everything (a "full" backup). Then, make daily backups of only changed files until it's time for next week's "full" backup. Each daily backup should be made to its own diskettes or tape volumes, so the first days' backups are not overwritten by later ones. The weekly full backup and all its successive daily changed-only backups form a backup generation. Next week, start the next generation with another set of backup media. If you use a grandparent/parent/child scheme, overwrite the "grandparent" backup when you make a new "child".

For even more safety, keep some of your backups in a secure location off-site. If your office contents are ever destroyed, you can recover computer operations whose backups are safe someplace else. For offsite storage in the "grandparent/parent/child" scheme, select a generation and designate it as the offsite backup. This means your weekly backup procedure will include a round trip to the offsite location to exchange the old off-site backup with this week's version. If you are using the "parent" for offsite storage, the off-site "parent" becomes the "grandparent" and should be brought back; the old "child", now the "parent", takes its place.

Backups

Backups Keep Your Computer out of Jeopardy

This is not a game

Defining the Terms

Backups establish a safety net

How long should you keep your backups?

Backup retention: more choices

Backup generations for reusable media

More about backups