Nothing is more devastating and frustrating to a programmer then to inadvertently delete his files after hours of hard work. Nightmares of stress and confusion can begin with a small mistake magnified by the power and speed of a computer system. Days, weeks and even months of work can be gone in an instant.
Have you ever had that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know that you have just deleted a complex file containing information that was not backed up? A variety of feelings will begin to erupt such as feelings of anger, denial, worry and fear. As you rush about looking for every scrap of paper which you may have mercifully printed out on an earlier occasion, your fear will grow. People ask, "What's wrong?" and try to reassure you that it is not the end of the world, the company or your job. But you know the truth and you don't want to face it.
I don't want this to happen to you. Here are three cases and methods of protecting yourself from this kind of disaster. Hopefully you will never have to experience the sick feeling of losing files again.
Files are most often lost by inadvertently deleting or overwriting one or more files on your system or server. This problem can be protected against quite easily by doing online backups of files that you are working on. Many software packages and programs will automatically backup every few minutes or even seconds, files that are currently being changed. This is great but don't count on this form of backup to save the day if you make a mistake and delete the file or directory after you have left the program. This form of backup is only useful in the event of a system crash. To prevent this kind of issue it is important to backup regularly. Every few minutes or every few hours, backup the files that you are working on. If you don't think you could recover after losing a file then it is already past the time when the backup should be done. The best thing to do is to simply create a backup directory and copy the files into that directory. Remember files can be lost when copying or deleting which will defeat the purpose so always copy to a new directory. These days disk space is cheep so feel free to keep as many old copies as you like. When creating the backup directory it is best to place it on a different physical drive. Often disk drive failures are the main cause of file loss resulting on requiring a recent backup. It would be sad if the backup was on the same drive as the original data. Sometimes an entire workstation can be hit by flood or electrical power surges which will destroy all the drives in the box. If possible copy the files threw the network or internet to another box or server. Even better if the box or server is off sight. Remember the idea here is that the backup is convenient and should only take a few seconds to perform. Files can be lost or corrupted through viruses or other more serious hardware issues. Full backups are necessary since often the user does not know which files have become corrupt. Since a full system backup is generally very time consuming it is not recommended that a backup of this nature should be performed too often. Consider how difficult and costly data loss over the period of time in your calculations to determine the frequency of backing up for the system failure contingency. For quickest full system backups consider using an external hard drive. Placing the drive in a fireproof box away from your computer system is recommended. If possible keep the backup off site but remember the security concerns of having all your information at the other location. Optical read/write drives are sufficient for many small business situations. They may take a bit longer to work with but may be a reasonable alternative. The third and most devastating situation is when the entire onsite system is destroyed. This happens most often through fire or flood and may result in both the backup and the original data files to be lost forever. Insurance may cover the physical loss but having your company fail due to loss of data is not something any small business owner would be willing to accept. Be sure to take a periodic full system backup of all your necessary data. It is best to test the backup on a complete offsite system as a beta site. If the unthinkable does happen you may find that you can be up and running in a matter of minutes. The backup files should be easy to retrieve from their offsite location, safety deposit box or home office. The last thing you want to be doing is trying to find and restore a system without a disaster plan in place. Have it ready! Even though this is rare it does happen more often than companies care to imagine.
Summary
Be sure to backup your files as you make significant changes. This backup plan should be quick and easy. For those rare days when everything goes wrong be sure to have a backup that is fairly up to date. Store this backup offsite and consider the security concerns of this form of backup.
Good luck and I hope you never have need for any of these backups but if you do I know you will be ready.
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Written by Steven Cameron
Company: Cameron Web Services
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