But this is What I Do
Once a week I set aside a day to backup my information. I not only backup my accounting data but I backup my whole pc. By doing it once a week its not such a chore and its an excuse to have a coffee.
I have multiple drives which I use for my backups but if I only had one drive it would still be fine (I like to backup twice to two different locations, call me paranoid but after I lost 5 years of data in one go because my backup drive crashed I now employ backups of backups)
I purchased a one touch drive from Maxtor which enables me to backup all my data at the click of a button. Yes, all I do is connect the usb cable and press the button on the maxtor drive and it automatically backs up all of the data that is on my pc.
It does this automatically and all I have to do is click ONE Button
It took about 10 minutes to setup the Maxtor Drive when I first purchased it, but now I do nothing but press a button and it then automatically backs up all my data files, my emails, my document files and my accounting files.
This is why I use these type of backup drives, as you can usually get away with a simply plug in and click and walk away.
In the old days I had to do this manually, and I had to choose blocks of data and copy and paste, but no more.
A point to note, I do have another backup drive which is not a one touch maxtor drive, it just connects to my computer via usb and comes up like any other drive. To enable the backup to work I then run another program on my pc that once activated it takes care of the backup for me.
In both cases above I needed to set aside time in the beginning to setup the programs involved in the backup so that they knew what files to backup and from where. But this was a really simple activity that I only had to do once.
Additional Points to Note:
A Point to Note is that I do not instruct the programs to backup from my EasyAs Accounting Directory, I Always do a manual backup to a different location and I have preset the backup software to backup from that location only...
Why do I do This:
The main reason is that I want to have more than one backup of my accounting data at different intervals in case of data corruption. So I save multiple copies of my data files to another location on my hard drive (which is in a separate folder under my documents), then this way I am always aware that I have data backed up over different time frames
Remember with the new easyas software it will backup a new timed backup each time your backup using the backup facility provided, so backing up multiple copies of your data files over a period of time is now even easier.
Corrupted Data Files
Remember if you backup data files which are already corrupted then they are useless to you. In fact they are as good as having no files backed up as they cannot be used anyway.
Data files can get corrupted by power fluctuations, viruses, or simple problems with the operating system at the time you are running the software.
You will NOT usually know if your files are corrupted, as there is usually no way of knowing. So when you are backing up your data files you will not know if you are backing up files which are corrupted until you have to rely upon them. At this point it is usually too late and you are usually in a whole world of pain.
Hence the need to always backup at regular intervals, the more you backup the more copies you have to fall back on..
For example; lets assume that I use my accounting software every day, I create invoices and quotes daily, so because of this I backup at the end of each day.. A few days ago I got a virus that played havoc with my pc but I was able to clean it out with my virus software.. Everything looked fine so i kept going along using all my software, and I kept performing my backups each day as I always do.
I come in this morning and the accounting software keeps freezing and playing up, the only way I can fix this problem is to restore my data files.. This seems to resolve the problem but by the end of the day the program is playing up again...
This is where having multiple daily backups is important as you eventually discover that all your backups from the last 3 days are corrupted and when you go back to a copy from 4 days ago everything is fine..
This is the problem everyone worldwide faces with any type of program, if you backup corrupted data files then you in effect have nothing...
Obviously in the scenario above I would have lost 3 days worth of information, but by having multiple backups I did not loose everything.. Many times a data corruption will show up straight away as soon as you attempt to use the data, however sometimes its not that obvious (as in the above example) and you can end up pulling your hair out until you discover what is going on.
A great tip:
I also go as far as pulling out the internet connection at the wall if lightening storms are around. I have seen pc's fry themselves, and hard drives electronically fail due to lightening strikes sending excessive charges down the cable or telephone lines, into the modem, into the router, and back into the pc.. The last thing I want is to fry both pc and backup systems at once.
Of course if you have a wireless connection to your pc then this is not a problem. I use hard wire setups between my pc's as I have more security this way.
Also if you have some form of surge protection installed and you believe it will save your day, it may not... I have seen cases where nature seems to have forgotten that us humans have figured out a way to stop it, and it surges the pc anyway, thus giving grief.
My process of Backing up My Accounting Data Files
With the new EasyAs Software the process of backing up my data files has now become even easier. It use to take some effort to copy the files and rename them to make sure that I had staged backups over a period of time, however the new system takes care of this for me.
When you use the new backup process that comes with EasyAs it not only copies your data files to the backup location but it also renames them by dating each backup set. This means that I can now backup more regularly as it doesn't seem such a chore, as all I need to do is click the icon to backup and the EasyAs System backups and provides me with instant data management.
When the EasyAs System copies the data files it also places a date in front of the file name as part of the backup process. It does this so we can establish which file belongs to which backup set, and more importantly it allows us the ability to see how old the data sets are.
This is how my data files appear at present before they are backed up using the EasyAs Backup System:
EasyData1.accdb
EasyData1.accdb
EasyData1.accdb
EasyData1.accdb
When the EasyAs Backup Process copies the files it dates them:
07252011 EasyData1.accdb
07252011 EasyData2.accdb
07252011 EasyData3.accdb
07252011 EasyData4.accdb
This is awesome as previously I had to carry out the date activity myself. Previously after I backed up my data files I would have to go to the backup location and place the date in front of the file name so I could successfully manage my data sets. This was something I always did as I knew the importance of maintaining a good data management system.
However now that the EasyAs System takes care of almost all of this for me I find myself backing up more often as all I have to do is click the button on my mouse and the easyas software takes care of the rest for me.
If for some reason you want to perform this activity manually then it cannot be overstated how important it is to manage this correctly, and to place a date or a numbered backup in front of the backup sets so that you can maintain stability of your backups.
If you find doing this manually is an exhaustive measure with placing dates in front of the file names you could place a number instead. I have successfully maintained timed backups using both dates and numbers. To place a number in front of the name is exactly the same process except you keep a sequence of numbers and each data set has the same number.
This is an example of a numbered data set:
1001 EasyData1.accdb
1001 EasyData2.accdb
1001 EasyData3.accdb
1001 EasyData4.accdb
The next time you backup your data files they would all start with number 1002 and it would continue from there.
Importance of Backing UP
The importance of performing regular backups can never be overstated enough, at EasyAs we see at least 1 to 2 people every year who contact us in a state of panic as they had never backed up and now their pc has crashed and they have lost sometimes as much as 2 years of data from the accounting system.
For the most part 50% of these individuals end up with complete data loss as there is nothing we can do for them, depending on the crash and their skills they can sometimes manually copy their files to a safe location, thus avoiding complete loss.
The key to remember is to Backup, Backup and Backup, it takes very little time but makes you smile if you ever need to rely on it.. I can tell you that I have smiled many times when I have had a systems crash as I know all my data is already saved and I never panic any more, I just shrug and get back to work.
File Corruption
Apart from obvious pc crashes file corruption is something a lot of individuals never imagine or anticipate.
File corruption is possibly one of the worse case scenarios as it is hard to pin point until it is too late, and then its even harder to know when it first started. Thankfully this is a rare occurrence and something that only 1 in every 10,000 individuals will ever experience, and that may in fact be wrong, it could be 1 in every 100,000 individuals.
Data corruptions can happen for a number of reasons and I find that it is usually due to power fluctuations, or an operating system that is crashing, or a hard drive that is beginning to malfunction.
The easiest way for me to explain a corruption might be to have 50 girls and 50 boys line up in two lines, and then have 5 or 6 random individuals jump to the other line. The person at the front cannot see that these individuals behind have jumped across and he or she continues on as normal. But then suddenly a day a week or at some random interval the person at the front needs to speak to the one of the people down the back but as he goes down the line he suddenly comes across a person of opposite sex and he has no idea what to do next.
This is what happens with a data corruption, once the file gets a corruption it becomes useless as the computer does not know what to do with it and has no idea when the corruption started. So for example you may have been using the program for 3 weeks past the initial corruption date before you realize a full blown corruption.
In the case of a hard drive failure it is usually sudden, so this is great if you end up with corrupted files as you can usually go back to the most recent set of backups and be fine.. I did say usually, its not always the case.
However most of the time its extremely difficult to pin point but if you sit and think you may remember a power failure in the last few weeks or some other issue that happened that seemed small but you did notice some minor issues with the pc afterwards but it soon went away. This is most likely the beginning of the corruption.. But as we know this happens all the time, in many cases I see the odd glitch in my computers on a daily basis so how is anyone ever going to know how to get around a corruption, the only way you can safe guard against it is by backing up as often as possible.
The worst part about corrupted files is that if the corruption started 3 weeks previous and you have been backing up daily or weekly then you have actually been backing up corrupted data sets, and you may not know this until you restore them and start using them. Thankfully data corruption is a rare occurrence and I have only ever seen one case of this occurring in the last 10 years.
But I have heard that it is something that seems to be on the increase in businesses, I think it is due to the mass produced parts, such as hard drives.. Above all backup, save data sets over a longer period of time. I keep up to 6 months of data sets, call me paranoid but I lost 5 years of data once and I never want to be hurt that way again.
Also keep at least two copies on two separate devices... it would be pointless to keep two copies on the same hard drive because if that drive has a mechanical failure then you loose both backups. I have my main working copy and all my main backups on my D Drive in my pc, which is another hard drive sitting in my pc.. But I also have 2 external drives that I backup to. I use one for a month then I swap and use the other one for a month. I am using 3 different devices, I will never get caught out again.
