notacomputergeek

Repeat after me, “I will back up my data regularly.” I won’t yell and scream at you about the reasons why – let’s just say this is mandatory. We all have accidentally deleted a file. Disgruntled employees may delete entire folders. Ransomware can encrypt all your data. Disasters happen. These are all good reasons to back up and ensure business continuity.

Microsoft Windows and Windows Server have a built-in capability called Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). This feature will take snapshots of modified files twice a day allowing you to restore previous versions. Depending on how frequently you change things, you can expect to have about 7-10 days of file changes using the default storage size – 2% of your internal drive. Microsoft claims this will take care of 80% of restores rather than retrieving files from an external backup.

For small amounts of data, you may want to use a flash drive and copy/paste or drag important files to it. External USB drives are also helpful for making backups and can be used with the built-in Microsoft Windows backup program. Offices with servers only need to backup data from the server since any company information should be stored on the server and not on local hard drives. This also makes it easier and faster to re-deploy a new computer if you don’t have to worry about what data is stored on it.

In addition to many 3rd party backup programs, another option is to subscribe to an online service, such as iDrive or Carbonite. Online services have their own software which you configure what to backup. Once configured, you can forget about it, except for periodic verification that it continues to backup or if you want to change what is being backed up. These sites usually charge monthly fees based on how much data you’re backing up.

Backups are intended to restore what may have been lost, stolen, or accidentally deleted, so it’s also a good idea to implement multiple methods. Suppose you have a single computer, and you back it up daily to an external drive – great, but what if a tornado or fire destroys the building – there goes your computer and your backup. The multiple methods approach I like to use is to utilize VSS, then backup the same files to an external drive nightly. The external drive is then swapped with a different external drive weekly and one of them is always stored off-site. This external drive backup is an image of the computer I’m backing up, so it’s also getting operating system files and configuration. Lastly, I also use an online backup service which backs up files as they change.

If you are using Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft SharePoint, or Google Drive they all have built-in version history. Even though this data is in the cloud, it is your responsibility to back up the data. Cloud data is also susceptible to a ransomware attack that will encrypt the data.

A bit of my history
• Amusing story, but true: A company called me one day and needed some assistance. I went to their office and one thing they asked was, “Can you check to see if our server backups are working?” After a brief look, I said, “No. The last successful backup was 3 years ago.” The last IT person that helped them instructed them to pull this tape out, then put this one in and swap them every week. They had been doing this diligently for three years but were never told how to verify that the backups were working! This could have been a very tragic lesson for the company if something bad had happened, but fortunately, they were OK. Side note – 3 years of neglecting their IT environment left them with many problems, but IT Support will be a future blog.