With my recent loss of laptop and quickbooks data, I have been researching different options and plans in solving loss of data in the future.
Making current backups is only as good as your self discepline, time to do it, and also where you store your backup. Also I have been concerned about protecting data against fire and shop theft.
Insurance covers all our hardware but never data and the precious time to recreate it.
So I looked at the offsite data back up inside quickbooks 2002 and am trying the 30 day trial. for 99 bucks a year you can store up to 200mb and it backs up automatically. Also you can access your data from any computer, removing the threat of losing a disk transfering data between say the shop and home. Also removed is the threat of faulty disks like zip, floppys or even cdrw's.
Seems to good to be true, has anyone ever used this and if you did how did it work pro's and con's.
Thanks in advance.
Posted by Harris Kohen (Member # 2139) on :
it sounds like agreat idea to me, large corporations do similar things with their data.
However isnt this another possible invasion into our privacy? (had to go there)
Posted by Curtis hammond (Member # 2170) on :
get Backup my PC and it does it all automatically. If you got time to send it to a ofsite co. then you got time to use this util..
oh yes 200 MB is no space at all, you will fill that up in no time. My ducuments file is 1.2 gigs alone
[ November 09, 2003, 11:26 PM: Message edited by: Curtis hammond ]
Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :
Make sure you read Quickbooks' security statements regarding off-site data storage. I can guarantee you they aren't offering any guarantees of security or reliability for that sensitive financial information. Given that, aside from the time involved you'd be just as set if you kept triple redundant back-ups handy then keep another monthly back-up in a safety deposit box at your bank.
Basically, you cannot guarantee 100% security or protection from damage no matter what you do, so you may as well save money and store this stuff on-site. Get an extra hard drive, make it a mirror of the complete system, and store it in a fire box.
Posted by Darryl Gomes (Member # 98) on :
At the last place I worked, we had a swap dock in our main computer and 2 hard drives. Every Friday we would copy all our files to one of the drives. One person had a drive at their house and another person had the other drive. The worst scenario would be losing 2 weeks work, and that is if the shop was broken into and the person with the most recent backup. We did have our main computer's drive crap out once and were up and running again in a few hours. Swap docks are cheap($20 CAN) and so are hard drives now. Also, our main computer had 2 drives in it, one for the OS and software and one for the files. When the drive quit working it was the one with the files. Just had to send the guy home to get the drive and swap it with the other.
[ November 10, 2003, 06:19 AM: Message edited by: Darryl Gomes ]
Posted by David Fisher (Member # 107) on :
On the subject of backing up, a pet soapbox. IMHO... Backing up and having multiple redundant backups is not one of those things that falls into the category of "Oh crap not this again" A perspective from one who sees data loss regularly. Multiple backup redundancy is not a luxury it is an absolute neccessity.
You should think to yourself the following questions: What would happen if I had a fire in my place of business or the place I have important information stored? What if someone stole my computer/s? What if my hard drive **** itself tomorrow? (bank on this one) How would I replace the lost data, what would it cost, how would I go about retrieving the information? For that matter, what if the off-site storage people I had an ageeement with rang me to say it was all gone.
If any of these potential stories sounds like a nightmare, then arrange to make sure it doesn't happen. With current hardware and software prices it is easy and relatively inexpensive, you should look into the following options AT LEAST. Several of them in conjunction with each other would be best. You should also define in your own mind what data is important and be damn sure it is backed up DVD - image all your current information to DVD (for EOD) CDRW - copy all your important information to CD (for EOD) Second hard drive plus mirroring software, works well for ongoing/real time peace of mind. Offsite storage should be secure assuming they live up to their advertising Floppy - at least you made the effort, probably useless though. Tape- great capacity, hope your backup is not corrupt, Magnetic media, paticularly floppy disk, is likely to let you down. I don't know about Quicken but MYOB (in the versions I am familiar with) ask you to create backup copies which by default are kept on the hard drive, great idea except when your hard drive fails all the backing up you thought you were doing is totally useless. Also a great way to fill your computer with zip files that are close to utterly useless copies of the same file. At the risk of sounding alarmist, if you don't know what to ask for, pay a few bucks to someone you trust and make bloody certain you have your data backed up numeruos ways Oh yeah, regarding the original topic, offsite backup sounds like a good idea to me. David
Posted by Mark Smith (Member # 298) on :
We have a Maxtor 80 gig HD that backs up our main server daily and is taken home at night by one of us. That way we have a daily snapshot and it's kept off-site.
Posted by Bob Rochon (Member # 30) on :
Great answers so far,
This how I see it, I use quickbooks here during the day, it was on a laptop, then at night I would undock it and take it home to do more books or even quotes, keeping it on one computer to lessen media failure and brain failure to back up and restore.
One thing I didnt take into consideration was that 1 in every 5 laptops are either stolen or lost. I got comfortable and lazy and I lost 5 months of data.
the time to reconstruct that is staggering. so I am reviewing ideas to add one more safety net to the mix and I'm also trying to protect myself from well........myself haha. I forget to back up or get too busy and say ahhh tomorrow, then tomorrow gets real busy and tomorrow turns into next week ... you get the picture.
I didnt always have media with me as well. with the laptop I had a cdrw but I found that cdrw disks are very UNreliable and I just never seemed to have a blank cdr in my bag when I needed it.
This program backs up automatically every day in the background so it wont hurt to have this PLUS hard copies on cdr's in a fire safe.
To me art files can be recreated easily, they are mostly in my head, but accounting stuff forget it, how can you remember everything?
And Mike I have quickbooks data since 1995 and I still havent filled a 100mb zip drive yet, not even close, so 200 mb will be plenty for me.
Posted by Bill Cosharek (Member # 1274) on :
As an alternative to carrying around zip-drives or cd-rw's, you could invest in one of those flash memory cards. With an adapter, you can put it in a PCMCIA slot and save from there. Of course, you're still bound by your own discipline. I see there are now compact flash cards with 1 gig on em. There are some with 256mb on eBay which you might get for a reasonable price. Don't worry. I won't bid against you.
Then there's always those flash drives which plug into a usb port. Since both these items are quite small, the most difficult part might just be remembering where you put them. Posted by TransLab (Member # 470) on :
Current year graphic data alone covers 2.8 gig, 200 meg is a bit limiting.
You can schedule backup to work automatically; mine does it at 3am across my network, I backup graphics once a month or so across cable modems to home. Accounting Data has a separate dialy backup and gets sent home weekdays. Fully automated.
Posted by Bob Rochon (Member # 30) on :
Mike waht do you back up your 2.8 gig too? and how do you have your accounting sent home on a daily basis unattended?
Hmmmmm? Posted by Matty McQuilkin (Member # 4156) on :
We have two off site backups, both of them are done via ftp to web servers. One is uploaded to the free space where our web site is hosted. The other is uploaded to a web server in our home, all done though internet conections.
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
with the price of hard drives at all time lows...ex. 80 GIG MAXTOR office depot for $49.00 after rebates. why dont you have 4-5 of them? i have a 2nd hard drive in my computer, it has a total copy of my main hard drive. portable hard drives...with a USB CONNECTION, at $100....plug in to USB port...and do a back up in and hour....or less. i have removable hard drives 3, and i even got a backup of my work hard drive on the wifes computer....i learned early...YOU NEVER HAVE ENOUGH BACKUPS of your main hard drive!!!!!
Posted by David McDonald (Member # 3433) on :
Backing up to portable hard drives seems to make the most sense right now. They are cheap, fast, more reliable than tape and are still portable enough to move off site. The backup can easily be scheduled to happen after hours using Windows backup program.
Don't use just one backup drive! If something went wrong "during" the backup you could end up with a bad hard drive in the computer AND no backup.
If you have a web site and want to backup some vital files just FTP them to a folder on your site as extra insurance.
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