Back Up Engagingly: FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 04-27-07

Last week Loyal Reader Mike Van Horn wrote this in response to the Backup Reminder about updating your backups to match changes in your file system:

I recently had a very similar situation. I used my back up drive with my home Mac to re-arrange all my project files (since I'm much more likely to do that onerous task at home in the evening than in the office). Then I replaced all those rearranged folders on my office Mac the very next morning, before I changed anything else.

But my next incremental backup (using SilverKeeper v1.1.4) caused some strange effects. I kept getting a message saying there was a newer version of the file I was trying to backup on the backup device. So I ended up restarting the backup, and it's working just fine again. But for a couple of weeks, while I was figuring this out, I did notice that some files were not getting backed up.

The plus: I continually check the validity of my latest backup, since I use that backup on my backup drive to update folders on my home computer each week. If there's a discrepancy I see it instantly.

This week I have cleverly arranged to have someone else write my backup column. During her presentation at the Online International Podcasting Expo last weekend, Anna Farmery of The Engaging Brand mentioned that she has a backup system for recording her podcasts. She uses Skylook to record Skype interviews automatically, but she also uses Audacity to record the conversation. Most podcasters have forgotten to hit the “record” button at least once, and ended up having to do the show over, so it's a sensible precaution

I asked Anna to write a few paragraphs about what she does to back up her important data, and she was kind enough to provide me with the following answer.

I love Web 2.0, so much so that I have built my company—The Engaging Brand—around the technology. It creates dialogue, it allows creativity. However, one thing that I realised early doors was that backing up your data was even more vital. I now have regular back up routines that ensure that my company is safe and that I am protected from those life hiccups that sometimes occur.

Each week I have the following routines:

A) Norton Save and Restore

I back up all my data twice a week to a Buffalo USB external hard drive, timed to happen late at night automatically so it does not effect the time I have available to grow my business and that it does not rely on me to remember. Occasionally if I will operate a manual back up if I produce some important work that would be impossible to replace. The hard drive back ups both my drives and was purchased on Amazon for under £100. Small investment but huge benefits.

B) Podcasts

My podcasts for The Engaging Brand are a vital part of the marketing. The downside is that they are space hungry so once backed up I then back up to a separate folder on the external drive. After that I delete them from my hard drive to release space, ensuring that my PC is operating at its maximum efficiency. I also use a podcast hosting firm therefore I know that the podcast files have two back ups in case of problems.

C) E-Mail

I use Microsoft Outlook, which means that if my computer went down I would be lost without the e-mails. My back up routine includes daily back ups of content, to do lists and diary to both my Video iPod and my PDA. I also save important e-mails to Word documents which are then included in easily readable documents in the back up routine.

D) Second Computer

I have two computers. For all critical information I have copies on both computers. Therefore my laptop acts as a further back up to any critical data.

Computer failure is a risk—one thing that I have learned the hard way is that your data is your lifeblood. To ensure that you are ready for any type of failure, working out a back up routine that works for you is important to your business, important that you remain able to recover from those disasters that happen when you least expect it.

Have a great weekend!

Anna Farmery

Visit The Engaging Brand website
Listen to my weekly podcast on leadership
Phone Me: +44 07914 381864 or Skype AnnaFarmery

And there you have it: backing up your data in the north of England isn’t too much different from backing it up in Northern California. It certainly isn’t any less important.

What Your Hard Drive Really Looks Like

Tech Republic's Mark Kaelin decided to peel open an old (1998) hard drive, layer by layer, to find out what was inside. If you've ever wondered what the inner workings of disk storage looked like, check out his photos.

But take note: this definitely falls under the category of “Kids, don't try this at home,”—at least if you ever want to be able to use the drive again.

Rearranging Your File System? Recheck Your Backups. FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 04-20-07

My mind is almost blank this morning. I’m distracted by the fact that I’m in the middle of the Online International Podcasting Expo, at which I’m speaking tomorrow morning. (My computer is distracted, too, because the Expo interface sucks bandwidth and RAM.)

A couple of days ago I decided to restructure my file system and make the Podcast Asylum a top-level directory instead of a sub-directory of Author-izer. That meant that instead of going to C:\!Author-izer\Podcast Asylum\etc to find a file, I now go to C:\!Podcast Asylum\etc. I also relocated all of my podcast-related presentations from my C:\!Author-izer\Author-ized Appearances folder to C:\!Podcast Asylum\Podcasting Presentations.

(Oh, yeah—for anyone who might be wondering about the exclamation points, they’re there to force the folders to the top of the list in Windows Explorer, so I don’t have to scroll past other folders to look for them in alphabetical order. I believe this works in the Mac Finder, as well.)

Doing that helps me keep the different aspects of my business clear in my mind. (Yes, there’s a C:\!FileSlinger folder, too.) In the past couple of months I’ve overhauled the Podcast Asylum and created a short series of audio “Reports from the Asylum” as a contribution to the For Immediate Release podcast, so there’s now a lot more material there than there used to be. It’s easier for me to find things when I don’t have to go through as many subfolders, and when everything related to one topic is gathered together.

But whenever I create a new top-level folder instead of a subfolder in an existing directory, that means I have to revise my file backups. Before I made this change, both Karen’s Replicator and SyncBack Free automatically backed up all the Podcast Asylum files to my X drive (the 2.5 inch external FireWire/USB drive) and my D drive (my second internal hard disk) whenever they backed up the !Author-izer folder. So I had to go into Replicator and SyncBack and create new backup jobs (SyncBack calls them “profiles”) for the new !Podcast Asylum folder.

This took all of ten minutes, and a bit longer to run the backups the first time, and then another 15 minutes, max, to clean up the backup drives. (I removed duplicate files which were still lurking in the !Author-izer folder on X and D.) Then I dragged a copy over to the Z drive (my still-working-just-fine-for-me Maxtor Shared Storage II drive).

Updating a file backup like this isn’t usually difficult, but if you forget to do it, it could be months before you realize that some of your important files aren’t getting backed up. And the reason you discover it will probably be that you’re looking for the backup because the original is lost or corrupted.

In most cases, if you create a new subfolder of a directory that’s already getting backed up, and your backup software has “include subfolders” checked, you won’t need to change anything. So if, for instance, you include your “My Documents” folder in your backup, and every new folder you make goes somewhere in “My Documents,” that folder’s contents will get backed up. But it’s a good idea to check, just in case. Start up your backup software and take a look at the settings to make sure they include your new folder.

If they don’t, update them so they do. Then you can relax and let your automatic backups go to work.

Never Underestimate the Power of Human Error: FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 04-13-07

Sometimes I think my readers must be ambulance-chasers, because two of them sent me links to articles about the same data loss disaster this week. (You know who you are.) The story actually dates back to March 20, and Associated Press starts it off like this:

“Perhaps you know that sinking feeling when a single keystroke accidentally destroy hours of work. Now imagine wiping out a disc drive containing an account worth $38 billion.”

Eeek! It’s a pretty horrifying prospect, even if very few people reading this e-zine are likely to get their hands on $38 billion.

It’s not the money that was destroyed, of course. Both the destruction and the creation of money are pretty much matters of consensus, or perhaps of fiat. But without the proof that the money represented by zeroes and ones in the bank is yours, it might as well not exist for all the good it’s going to do you.

The money in question belongs to the Alaska Permanent Fund, of which I’d never heard before this. Part of the fund’s mission is to ensure that Alaskans receive timely dividends. That’s just a bit difficult to accomplish when you don’t have any records of who gets what.

The story continues:

“While doing routine maintenance work, the technician accidentally deleted applicant information for an oil-funded account—one of Alaska residents' biggest perks—and mistakenly reformatted the backup drive, as well.

There was still hope, until the department discovered its third line of defense, backup tapes, were unreadable.”

I’m not sure how one accidentally reformats a backup drive, and I haven’t seen anything online (most sources just seem to reprint the AP story) to explain it. I suppose if it were an internal drive, one might choose the wrong partition to reformat—easy enough to do if they’re all the same size and their drive letters have disappeared or been rearranged (something that happens with DOS-based Norton Ghost, so that if your main and backup drives are the same size, you have to look at their contents to be sure you’re making an image of the right one). But it’s really hard to imagine accidentally reformatting an external drive.

Unreadable tapes are no big surprise. Blogger and system architect Payton Byrd uses the story to illustrate his main point that “Tape sucks as a backup medium…Even the most unreliable of today's hard drives will be much less susceptible to failure as [sic] tape.”

In the end, the fund was able to get its data back—because it still had the original paper forms it had scanned in to create the database. Re-entering the data cost them $200,000.

Back in 2005, I wrote about a similar thing which happened to a client of mine on a smaller (though proportionally just as significant) scale. While the business owners were overseas, the backup server stopped working. Then the main server messed up. They came home to find a month’s worth of customer transactions gone up in smoke, and spent $10,000 on data recovery, hardware replacement, and re-entering the data from the paper printouts the CEO had taken it into her head to start collecting in the previous year.

In my client’s case, the problem was one of hardware failure—compounded by the fact that no one in the office thought to report the problem with the backup server to anyone who could have done something about it.

The single biggest cause of data loss is human error. Is there anyone reading this who hasn’t accidentally deleted a file, or copied over something they meant to keep, or even thrown an important paper into the recycling bin? The Windows recycle bin and the Mac trash can give us at least some opportunities to retrieve items we didn’t mean to get rid of, but just as there’s no such thing as a child-proof container, there’s no such thing as an error-proof system.

And if there’s anything the least bit wonky about the hardware or software, it just makes it that much easier for us to mess up. I love my computer, but for some reason the “Shift” and “CTRL” keys tend to stick. This caused me no end of bafflement and trouble until I realized what was going on. I would end up actually rebooting my computer because I couldn’t do anything and all my keyboard commands were messed up. Now I’ve clued in, and if the keys I press do something funny, I whack the “Shift” key and see whether that fixes it, and if it doesn’t, I hit the “CTRL” key. Usually one or the other will set things to rights.

Probably the only thing more dangerous to our data than we are ourselves are our pets and children. The cat once managed to shut my laptop down by walking across it. I’m still not sure how she managed it, because she was nowhere near the power button. And I’m sure the inside of the machine is full of cat hair, which no doubt will combust one day. (Well, maybe not, because the drive doesn’t get all that hot, but my computer repair guy is decidedly reproachful on the subject.)

So what can we do? There’s only so alert and careful we can be, but there are a few precautions to take. Set any program you work with regularly to autosave on a frequent basis. (And practice hitting that CTRL-S (Windows) or Command-S (Mac) key combination to save manually, until it becomes a reflex.) Set up automated backup systems and check them to make sure that they’re working. Use good-quality backup media and store them in protective containers away from heat, dust, moisture, and cat fur. Send or put copies of your most important data in a secure off-site location on a regular basis. (It’s much easier if you set up a routine, e.g. “On the first of each month I have to put all this onto CD and take it to the safe-deposit box.”)

And if anyone asks you to do hard drive maintenance for a fund worth $38 billion, just say no.

Worst Practice Warnings from TechRepublic: FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 04-06-07

Among the many backup-related items which landed in my inbox this week was a link to a collection of articles from Tech Republic called “Worst Practices for Disaster Recovery.” It particularly caught my attention as I’d just had a new client say there was no disaster recovery strategy for his entire 650-person company—at all, never mind just in IT. (Fortunately for me, providing one is not my job.)

Disaster recovery goes beyond just restoring lost data. To quote Wikipedia:

Disaster recovery is the process of regaining access to the data, hardware and software necessary to resume critical business operations after a natural or human-caused disaster. A disaster recovery plan (DRP) should also include plans for coping with the unexpected or sudden loss of key personnel. DRP is part of a larger process known as Business Continuity Planning (BCP).

Those of us who are sole proprietors don’t necessarily think a lot about business continuity and ensuring that someone else could take over and keep the business running if we were incapacitated. Maybe we should, but then again, my business is built on the personal relationships I have with clients, and there’s no guarantee they’d want to continue working with my successor if I had one. (Okay, okay. I’m making excuses.)

Like Wikipedia and Tech Republic, I’m going to focus on data protection. Most data loss is caused by human error, and simple file backups can save the day if you accidentally delete something you meant to keep. Nevertheless there are fires, floods, thefts, and small children, any one of which might destroy your entire office, or at least put paid to your hardware along with your data. The possibility of a disaster is the reason for making off-site backups.

In addition to your data, here are a few other things to keep in that safe-deposit box:

1. A list of your hardware specs, and/or the receipts for your insurance. If you make complete drive images, you need the same hardware to restore them to.
2. Install CDs for your most important software.
3. Passwords, particularly those you need to access online backups.
4. Instructions for restoring your data, if you’re not familiar with the process.

Now, on to those Worst Practices.

The first thing that will prevent you from recovering your data is not making regular backups. That one is pretty obvious, but unless you’ve got an automated backup schedule, it’s easier said than done. That’s the reason I started writing the Backup Reminder, after all: because one of my clients kept forgetting to make backups.

In order to get your business back up and running, it’s not enough to be able to recover data from six months ago. You need the projects you’re working on now. Take a look through your documents and ask yourself “How much would it cost me if I lost this?” and “How long would it take to do this over?” Decide which things are critical and make sure you back them up daily. There’s plenty of free software which will do that for you, like Karen’s Replicator and SyncBack Freeware for Windows and SilverKeeper for Mac, not to mention online services like Mozy.

Next on the list of Worst Practices is “Save money on backup media.” This actually a warning against not buying enough backup media. You need enough tapes/disks/drives to make at least two full backup sets. And there are only so many times you can re-use a tape or a re-writable CD/DVD before it wears out.

The other danger in “saving money” is buying cheap no-name CDs and DVDs. These are much more likely to degenerate within a couple of years. (See the 9/26/03 Backup Reminder for more details.) It can also be dangerous to put labels onto CDs; the last I heard, you’re only supposed to write on the innermost plastic ring, where there isn’t any data. I do think, however, that if you buy CDs which are coated for printing on, it should be safe to write on the tops with a soft-tipped pen. (More on labels here.)

The next worst practice on TechRepublic’s list is “Don’t look at your logs.” You may be asking “What logs?” Many software programs keep “logs” recording the success or failure of the backup. Some programs will only tell you if the backup fails, but they’re usually still keeping track. If you don’t know where to find the log, check the install directory for the program. For instance, if I go into Program Files\System Tools\Mozy\Data, I find a text file called mozy.log. It’s full of things like this:

23Mar2007 05:28:22 mozybackup.exe: Mozy Remote Backup service is starting...
23Mar2007 05:28:23 mozybackup.exe: Client operating system is 0 0 5 1 a28 2 0 10100
23Mar2007 07:45:12 mozybackup.exe: Starting backup
23Mar2007 07:45:12 mozybackup.exe: Latest client version is 1.8.0.4
23Mar2007 07:45:15 mozybackup.exe: Retrieving manifest from servers...
23Mar2007 07:45:25 mozybackup.exe: Fetching encryption type from Mozy servers
23Mar2007 10:12:12 mozybackup.exe: Finished backup with code: 0x00000000

Fortunately, there’s actually a handy little “Mozy status” icon which tells me when my files were backed up last without my having to actually look at the logs, but logs are important. In the TechRepublic article, Peter Herbener recommends looking for error messages, checking to see if anything obvious is missing, making sure the number and size of files back up seemed right, and checking the start and end time of backups.

The fourth Worst Practice is not testing your backups. Testing every backup of every file every day isn’t really practical, but you should definitely check the first backup you make with any new program. Herbener’s tips for testing are:

• Test with tapes (or whatever media you use) from your regular backups.
• Don't just spot test a couple of files. Make sure you can restore entire directories, servers, or applications.
• Do a test restore to a different computer or server.
• If you can afford it, have the same model of tape drive at another location. Test it to make sure it's really compatible! If you can't afford that, at least make sure you know the exact model of your tape drive and know where to get one in a hurry.
• Make sure to keep a copy of the install disks for your backup software with your backups.
• Make sure to document the procedure for restoring or reinstalling applications, especially any special tips or tricks. Put this into a text file in the application so that it gets backed up with everything else.

I’d make sure to print that text file, myself, because having it backed up won’t matter if you can’t remember the procedure.