The Computer Backup Mistake You're Probably Making
Have You Actually Tested Your Backup System?
Posted by Charlie Recksieck
on 2023-05-11
No Matter Who You Are
Can you answer this question: What backups do you have in place for your company's data? Your customer's data? For your website? For your personal stuff - like emails, photos, downloaded music and books?
While this question runs deeper for the CTO of a Fortune 500 company, EVERYBODY needs to have a backup system in place. What's yours?
Generic Areas
Whether you're a company or a near-Luddite, if you're reading this you're using a computer so you need backups. What happens to the following if you get hacked, your web host screws up or you lose a phone or computer.
Where would you restore a backup for:
- Your Emails
- Your Website
- Your Files
Actually Testing Your Backup Plan
Even if you have satisfying answers for the section above, these are all just theoretical if you've never actually done a practice restore of your backups. We've dealt with companies and even been brought in by clients just to bail them out after a disaster - usually when it's too late.
Right Now, Find Out:
1) Try restoring emails from your backups. Are all your most recent and your oldest emails in there?
2) Find your web site source files - not on your host but somewhere else. Where are they?
3) Are you backing up ALL of your databases? In your local office environment and your cloud and your web files - you might know where all of the files are. But databases drive more things than you think. Where, specifically, are your databases being backed up?
Putting It More Simply
Have you or your IT folks ever done a practice restore? If you haven't, then you have no way of knowing how screwed you're gonna be if something bad happens.
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If we made you nervous right now and need our help, reach out to us for a quick call or free assessment of what shape you're in. Of course, we'd love your business eventually - but we also want to help you avoid disaster in the near future with just a little bit of guidance.