Are automated backups it?

There has been some very healthy commenting on a blog post within the flyingsolo.com.au website this week following an article by David Moore, from I Hate My PC.

You can read the whole article here, however I do have an extract for you.

I’m going to tell you the most important information you’ll ever hear about data backups. They come from the heart, they come from cold hard facts and they come from painful experience.

Data backups are essential, but they aren’t sexy or fun. They’re often done poorly, overlooked altogether or fail when you need them most.

I’m not going to tell you what method to use to do your backups because every situation is different. Instead I’m going to share the facts you must take into account:
1. Your backup needs to involve a person who cares about the data

I’m sure you’ve heard about (and maybe even bought) automatic backup solutions that “look after themselves”.

Why would you believe that? Nothing else in computing looks after itself, so why would your backups?

It is a worthwhile article to read and so are the comments left by many small business owners. Online backup must become a part of all backup strategies in particular those of small businesses.

The case that automated is an over-promise has merit, not so much that you can’t let software run the show for you but more from the point of view that you need to test your backup regularly. Furthermore it is your responsibility to ensure that it is working, that the backups are being made and that the data on the backup is up to date. A person needs to do this, you can’t rely on a PC or software to ensure that this is 100% correct.

Whenever I hear a customer telling me that they will install Carbonite and then all of their backup needs will be totally taken care of, I shudder. Much like anti-virus software, the software can only do so much, you also need to be a little smart about the sites you visit and the information you place on those sites.

Carbonite was developed to help everyday consumers and small business get a backup service up and running simply and easily whether they had a internal or external IT person or not at all. Given its easy install process and automated nature, once installed it will begin the backup process and then keep monitoring files for change.

Your responsibility is to ensure that the correct files are selected for backup and that the software is working correctly all of the time. You can check this easily via the Carbonite Backup Drive. This service sits in your system tray and tells you what is happening. What you need to look out for is the green lock eg

If you double click on this what you need to see is:

With your Backup Drive showing you that “Your backup is up-to-date” you can feel secure that your Carbonite software is doing what it should be doing. You can see below what my PC shows.

The take up of online backup services such as Carbonite over the past 3 years in Australia has been significant. This is supported by the fact that flyingsolo as a small business website has run two backup feature articles over the last couple of months.

When we first started marketing Carbonite 3 years ago and approached flyingsolo to contribute articles they didn’t think that their audience would be interested. True story and shows how far we have come.

The issue of internet plans not supporting online backup services is also a misnomer. True that if you don’t watch your backup you could go over your limits but the data plans in Australia have been growing so much that this would really only affect a few people. My experience has been 2 complaints in the 3 years that I have been associated with Carbonite.

This comment is also very relevant:

Ultimately, if you don’t regularly test your backup, try to recover any or all of the data from wherever you’ve chosen to store it, then you are just giving yourself a false sense of security.

The risk that the data wasn’t backed up correctly is a real risk, but so is that fact that you won’t know how to restore it properly if you don’t practice. You need to know how to add the backup to your MYOB or other files. How to return the files to your Outlook.

The beauty of an automated service is that if you don’t have time to do a manual backup and worse still if you are not backing properly at the moment, it can give you a serious head start. Whilst it might be every PC technician’s ultimate recommendation, Carbonite has saved hundreds and millions of files for every day consumers and business owners all over the world.

This is what gives us the confidence to continue recommending this service.

Hard drives crashing left, right and centre!

A couple of weeks ago, I got spat of phone calls from customers who where using Carbonite and had a hard drive crash. Some were relaxed enough to listen to my instructions on how to restore, whilst others were a little stressed and wanted some clear direction on how to retrieve their data and get their business back up and running. I don’t blame, with our without Carbonite, I would be stressed too if it was my business data.

The stats say that 1 in 8 or 12.5% of hard drives fail, that was certainly an understatement in terms of the calls I received that week. Having tweeted this out, I instantly got a reply from a follower saying that they had also had a similar week.

It is a very common story when you listen to the calls that come in from small and medium sized business, particularly those using  an external hard drive or NAS as their only backup. Once they have experienced failure they instantly start looking for an online solution.

The Carbonite experience in Australia is that most people don’t look at their backup until a problem occurs or they get a technician in who does an assessment. That is the reality of this market.

The danger is that relying entirely on hard drives is risky because anything with mechanical parts has a probability of failing, particularly when the weather gets hot as it is in Australia at the moment.

My advice is that you keep your hard drives and you maintain them because a good backup strategy must include some form of local backup. You also stay one step ahead by investing in some online backup for those critical business files.