Data Backups - One Key to Business Survival
Your customer data is a precious resource that can literally be worth its weight in gold! If used properly, it can be mined over and over 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 didn't know how to protect it, or couldn't 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'd loose her business if she couldn't 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 their contact information again, won't that make them feel secure about her company. Or 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, for 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 you enter information into.
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 don't 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'll 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 don't care how or why you lost their information, they just care that you did. I'll 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?
Rick Parrott, MCP - SA Secure, http://www.SASecure.net, a San Antonio TX company specializing in desktop support and help desk services for small to medium businesses. Our goal is to provide an alternative to maintaining an expensive in-house IT staff or relying on many different individual computer repair technicians.
Working for fortune 500 corporations has taught us the value of continuity when it comes to your IT needs. Calling in random repair technicians does not allow for this continuity, the technician has to learn your business every time you change to another company. This causes inefficiencies in the process, which lead to higher support costs and lower reliability. We offer on-site desktop, remote telephone, network and wireless support. Need a project manager? What about end user computer training? In short everything the big corporate players enjoy we can provide for your business, at a fraction of the costs!
email: rickparrott@sasecure.net
MORE RESOURCES:
SubRosaSoft.com Announces Version 7.5 Of Their Data Recovery Products prMac (press release) [prMac.com] Fremont, California - SubRosaSoft.com Inc., a software company focusing on data recovery and system utility software, announces the immediate availability of version 7.5 for the entire Salvage line. FileSalvage, CameraSalvage ... |
 Social Barrel | Megaupload: Is time running out for data recovery? Social Barrel Because the servers are of hosting companies Carpathia and Cogent, the decision about data recovery depends upon them, prosecutors highlighted. Meanwhile, while reacting to matter Carpathia has said that they don't have and never had access to contents ... Megaupload, Megavideo Data Recovery Secret: How to Save Files Before Erasure ... |
How To Recover Files Using Disk Doctors Windows Data Recovery MicrosoftFeed If you are looking for brilliant file recovery program, then today I am going to tell you about Disk Doctors Windows Data Recovery and how to recover files using Disk Doctors Windows Data Recovery. It is much more than simple undelete software or a ... |
Xerox Expands Cloud Services, Data Recovery for SMBs Channel Insider The cloud backup and data recovery services are designed to provide the recovery of data, applications and operating systems. Digital print solutions specialist Xerox released a suite of cloud services aimed at small to medium-size businesses (SMBs), ... |
 ComputerActive.co.uk | Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Home Edition ComputerActive.co.uk If your backup has failed in some way, though, Stellar Phoenix Data Recovery could help recover files that have been deleted or corrupted. Besides a disc containing the software, a startup CD is also included for when your PC won't start up normally. Stellar Team up to Showcase Mac Data Recovery 5 at Macworld Expo 2012 |
The cloud reduces data recovery downtime Kroll Ontrack Cloud computing is not only a valuable tool for flexibility, it also has valuable uses for data recovery and business continuity. If information is stored in the cloud, it means recovery from a disaster can be in minutes rather than hours or even days. |
Leichhardt extends StorageCraft data recovery offsite Government News The actual data recovery using the software only took two hours, Ms Wilcock said. “We were able to restore the hard disks and rebuild the database with absolutely no data loss,” she said. She said the council also uses StorageCraft ShadowProtect ... |
Aware Bear Computer Repair Pittsford New York DELL Laptop Service and Repair ... PR Web (press release) Aware Bear Computer Repair in Pittsford New York specializes in DELL laptop hard drive replacement and data recovery services in Rochester New York. Aware Bear Computer Repair in Pittsford New York can extract and backup any data stored inside a hard ... |
 Lifehacker Australia | Australia trails behind UK with data recovery Kroll Ontrack Despite experiencing severe flooding last year, Australian businesses are still trailing behind the US and UK when it comes to data recovery. The Acronis Global Disaster Recovery Index polled 6000 IT professionals around the world and found that ... Retail industry the worst in IT disaster practices, not ready to change |
Are Data Recovery Services Safe? PC Magazine The survey, commissioned by DriveSavers, polled individuals in the US who have experience with data recovery services for their companies. Most of those in the final sample set have supervisory responsibilities, and the collection of companies involved ... DriveSavers Reveals Overlooked Threat in Security of Data Recovery Operations ... Can you trust data-recovery service providers? Companies prove careless when enlisting data recovery services |
Want To Beat The Odds? Disaster Recovery Planning is Essential
Statistics show two out of five businesses go out of business within five years of experiencing a major disaster.These statistics are staggering.
Learn How To Make Data Backup Over The Internet!
Why should you backup your data on the Internet?There are several reasons.* The backup is located at a secure place for away from your computer.
How To Limit Hard Drive Data Recovery Costs
With the value on information rising day by day, one of the greatest threats to businesses of any size is data loss. If the data centers in your business have ever experienced a hard drive disaster, you quicky realized just how valuable the information lost is.
The Best Data Recovery Choice For You
The best defense against a loss of data is a really solid and faithful backup routine of important files to reliable media. It's also a good idea for the media to be removable and portable if possible so that even if something happens to your whole computer for any reason, the data is protected by being in a totally different physical area.
Sea-Front or Action-gate
June 25, 2005Seagate Technologies' web site now indicates the company offers data recovery services. Further investigation shows the shipping address, the place to send your subject drive for data recovery service, actually belongs to ActionFront Data Recovery.
Hard Drive Crash? The Essential Data Recovery Report
Your worst nightmare just became a horrifying reality. You keep hearing that little voice in your head mockingly shout "you should have backed that stuff up" The voice keeps echoing throughout your head as you perform a quick inventory all of the important information that you just lost?.
Data Backup Solution: Why You Need a Backup Plan in Place - Part 1
Is a data backup solution part of your computer plans? Do you have a way to protect yourself if something goes wrong with your computer or data? Computers are a useful part of our lives but we don't always protect ourselves from their loss be it fire, theft or hardware failure.We often don't consider how fragile our computer data really is.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - Business Impact Analysis
Business impact analysis is a critical part of the business continuity planning process. This step quantifies data and gets into the real world issue of potential losses that can negatively impact your business.
3 Ways Computers Can Hurt Your Ministry - Part 1 - Ineffective Data Backups
Our computers have become almost indispensable ministry tools. What would you do if the worst happened and you had to function without your computers? Would your ministry survive?This article is the first in a 3-part series on how to protect your ministry from serious computer-related loss.
How To Use Spyware Elimination Software
Spyware elimination software is designed to detect and eliminate spyware. A large number of spyware elimination software products are available.
Disaster Recovery- Managing the Risk
Helping your business survive in the event of an unforeseen disaster: Most business failures are not from bad business but from bad business practices.Most companies that fail are the ones that have not planned how their business will continue to function in the event of a disaster.
9 Things to Look for when Considering Data Backup Solutions
It's one thing to loose data and money because of hackers and thieves of various kinds; it's a different thing again when it's because you didn't back up your data properly or not at all. Value your data! Whether it's that critical business document, your thesis, your website or your home accounts and precious photo's.
Its All In The Planning - Surviving Disaster
ITS ALL IN THE PLANNING - PREPARING FOR THE UNTHINKABLE* Make it clear who needs to do what, and who takes responsibility for what.* Appoint deputies for key roles.
Do I Really Need To Backup?
Okay, computers a machine, right? Okay, maybe not yours. You have this special relationship, but that a subject for another article.
Computer Data Backups: Test Now or Cry Later
If you're like most small business owners, your computer data backups are one of those things that you rarely pay attention to. Computer data backups are kind of like flossing your teeth and eating low-fat, high-fiber foods? everyone knows what they're supposed to do? but how many REALLY do these things religiously?!?Unfortunately when it comes to your computer data backups however, complacency can be very dangerous.
The Importance of Data Backups
All computers and their components are subject to failure. In fact sooner or later every business will be confronted with some type of computer failure.
Backup Your Data Or Lose Your Life!
Oh the perils of collecting those precious photos on your PC for years, only to have your hard drive crash one day, and not have made a SINGLE BACKUP COPY of any of your priceless pictures. Well, now is the time to backup your hard drive.
5 Simple Tips to Prevent MS Access Database Corruption
It's important to understand that any time an Access client disconnects unexpectedly, it may set a "corruption flag" in the .mdb file indicating that the database is in a corrupt state (regardless of whether any data has actually been corrupted or not).
Do You Have The One Key Ingredient Necessary For Disaster Recovery?
It is not rocket science, we all know that we should have a disaster recovery plan in place for our business regardless of its size. When disaster strikes, it seldom discriminates on the size of the company.
Are The Words Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning Rolling Off Your Lips?
It might be more fun to talk about those free online business cards that are saving the company money, or those nifty designer business checks that are helping to solidif your branding efforts at the next staff meeting, but what really should be rolling off your lips are the words "business continuity and disaster recovery planning". Nothing is more important to a company than having a comprehensive recoveery plan in place prior to when disaster strikes.