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09.21.05
Data
Backups - One Key To Business Survival
 By
Rick Parrott
Your customer data is a precious resource that can literally be worth its weight
in gold! If used properly, it can be repeatedly mined for additional sales and
referrals. Do you use this gold mine to increase the profitability of your business?
You should! It can mean the difference between business survival and failure.
Why then do so few business owners take the time to ensure that it is adequately
protected? Are we too busy? Perhaps you just did not know how to protect it, or
could not afford the software and hardware required to back up your data correctly.
Ask yourself these questions:
Is there anything more important to my business than my customer data? What would
happen to my business if I were to loose all of my data?
Consider this common scenario. A client calls frantic that she would loose her
business if she could not recover her customer data. She had over five years of
information on her computer when the hard drive decided to make her life interesting.
So what are her choices? Renter the data manually, if she has any hard copies
available. Call everyone and ask for his or her contact information again, will
not that make him or her feel secure about your company. Alternatively, you could
call a data recovery technician. Their services can start at a thousand dollars
and go up rapidly from there!
Windows XP provides a fully functional backup utility, free! In fact, many of
the commercial backup products use this backup to save the data. All you are paying
for is the user interface, the window into which you enter information.
Before you run the setup wizard, you need to answer a few questions.
What data do I need to backup?
Only backup data that is necessary. Use the KISS (Keep It Simple Silly) method.
Your customer database and correspondence should be backed up as a minimum.
How often do I want to back up my data?
How often does your customer data change? Does a significant amount of data change
on a daily basis? Weekly?
Where do I want to store my data backup?
Most data backups still use a tape drive to store the data. The problem is that
they cost a fortune! The tapes alone are expensive. Alternatives are to store
your data backup on another computer on your network or copy it to a CD or DVD
writable disk.
Ok, so you want to backup your data. What now? Before we do that review the table
below:
Full Backup Copies and stores a complete duplicate of your data every time it
runs. Takes the most time to run and the most storage space. Quickest data recovery
feature. Easiest!
Incremental Backup Copies and stores only data changed since the last backup.
Must be combined with a full backup, and any other incremental backups. Most complicated.
Deferential Backup Copies and stores data changed since the last full backup.
Must be combined with a full backup and the last deferential backup. Middle of
the road.
If you have a relatively small amount of data, I would suggest a daily full backup.
If you have a larger amount of data, you might combine the full backup with a
deferential backup. Simple huh?
The next question is how to store the data backup. Even though it takes a little
extra work, I have my clients back their data up to a DVD writable disk. First,
set the wizard to back the data up to a folder. Usually this folder is on another
computer. Then burn this data to a DVD burner and place the disk it in a secure
location for retrieval as necessary.
If you do not feel comfortable setting this up yourself, any competent PC technician
can do it for you. If you want to do it yourself, click on the following link
and it will take you to a tutorial located on my website.
WINDOWS BACKUP WIZARD TUTORIAL
Whether you do the setup yourself or have it setup by a professional technician
you are taking the first step in ensuring the long-term survival of your business.
Please take the time to do this.
Ultimately your customers do not care how or why you lost their information, they
just care that you did. I will leave you with this statistic:
Estimates suggest that 80% of small businesses that suffer a serious computer
failure cease trading within two years. Will yours be one of them?
About the Author:
Rick Parrott, MCP - SA Secure, a San Antonio Texas company specializing in desktop
support and help desk services for small to medium businesses. |
WebProWorld Dev Forum
