Today was yet another one of those days that come far too often.
A day when someone tells me their computer crashed and they have no backups.
This isn’t a computer at home that’s used for recipes, photos, genealogy, Google searches, email, Facebook and maybe an occasional game. This computer is used to manage their customers’ technical data and no one has bothered to back it up. We’re talking several gigabytes of contact information, among other things.
The stumper for me is this: Despite the fact that a sizable portion of this company’s tens of millions in revenue depends on the data this software manages, they haven’t backed it up for months.
Computers can come and go – it’s the data that matters. Except for specialty units like servers and such, many of the computers that do what this one does could be replaced by new, much faster hardware for $300-$400.
But none of that matters much if you don’t backup your business data.
Every time I think I should give customers a choice about backing up the data created in systems I create, one of these situations pops up to remind me that no choice is necessary. I have to keep my customers’ best interest at heart *even when they don’t*.
It happens.
Know anyone whose dog chewed through a computer’s power cord? I do.
Ever had the power fail while you were doing something important? Did it mess up your data? It will. Ironically, I lost power a few hours after I wrote the outline for this piece.
Ever had a client call and tell you their computer was stolen and their backup media was sitting on top of the computer – and it’s gone too? I have.
Don’t make me talk grandma into wagging her finger at you. Backup your stuff.
Take your business data seriously. Yes, it’s one more thing to do, even though you can automate it – just be sure those automated backups really do work. Do it every week, if not every day for stuff that you truly cannot afford to lose. Don’t be that person who calls and says “…..and we haven’t backed up since…”
The second most important thing about backups is that you can restore them.
Save a copy of the backup on a different device – not the same drive your data is on. If your backups are on the same hard drive as your data, you’re doing it wrong. If that drive dies, your backup dies with it. At least once a month, try to restore onf your backups to a different computer. If you can’t, you’re no better off than the businesses who don’t backup at all.
That electricity thing…
I’m a little NASA-ish when it comes to backup power systems. I have an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with automatic voltage regulation (AVR) on every computer as well as the TV. Yes, I really do mean every computer. Even though I rarely watch the tube, I don’t want to replace it if I don’t have to.
The UPS units are why I have servers that still run after 10 years. Computers like stable electricity.
They, like your data, are an asset. Depending on what type of computer you use, you might be able to replace it for a couple of hundred dollars – but you can’t replace the data. You can’t get the time back that you’ll waste replacing hardware, reinstalling software, reconfiguring your network and finally, re-keying your data – if you have it.
A $200-300 UPS will pay for itself with the first outage. Having even two minutes to close files and shut things down normally before firing off an email saying “losing power” etc is worth every penny vs. having it all shut down in a millisecond with no notice, damaging data as it goes down.
If and when electricity spikes or failures cream your machine or your data, there is rarely anything your computer person can do to make things right. Quite often, it’s time to replace the computer and start over. Sound like fun? It isn’t.
Save your bacon. Backup your data. Test your backups regularly by restoring them to a different machine. Sleep better at night.
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