I Need A Backup
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Apparently my business continuity plan is not quite as complete as I thought. Working at a home office and being the network administrator, backup administrator, and more in addition to database administrator, I've thought it over a little.
I bought the Nero suite awhile back and setup a weekly backup. I put all my documents from SQLServerCentral.com as well as other important stuff into one folder on my desktop. This gets backed up every Friday night and I drop a new DVD in the burner that afternoon (an Outlook alert reminds me) and then after 2-3 months I launch the old ones.
I also have a script to send critical files (Outlook files, magazine documents, article drafts, etc.) to another drive on my desktop. Occasionally I drop a backup file out on the SSC servers just in case of fire, etc.
In preparation for the move of my home, I made an extra DVD, packed it up in a box and moved it Friday. Then Sunday I shut down the computer, leaving my laptop in a closet (on which I'm writing this) and made a special computer trip to the new house. with a desktop from me, 2 from my wife, 2 from the kids, and 3 in the basement, it requires it's own trip with monitors, keyboards, etc.
Before I packed up, I'd written 6 editorials in case I didn't have time to write any this week as movers were coming Monday to get the big stuff moved and it will take us a few days to put the house back together as well as clean the old house. I warned Andy and Brian that I might be out of touch and checked my t-Mobile account, so I can connect at the local Starbucks in a jam.
At the new house, we had Qwest come out Friday and setup DSL along with the phones and with the cable modem at the old house, we thought we were prepared. We moved one wireless router to the new house and left one at the old house and it seemed we were prepared for being in transit.
So on Monday while the movers were busy, we decided to buy them pizza. While my wife ran to get sodas and water, I got online to check things, order pizza, and get the newsletter ready.
And realized that all my editorials are sitting on a file that got backed up, but the backup is in a box at the new house. And the originals are sitting on a hard drive at the new house. And since my wife was busy with an issue at work, the DSL modem didn't get configured, so we're not 100% sure how long it will take to find the account name, pwd, etc. and get online.
Not that it helps with my file being somewhere else. So I'm writing a new editorial to remind you that despite all your preparations, things can go wrong. I know some of you will get involved in office moves as well and missing critical files can impact your business. So be sure that you copy those files to a spare, working computer.
I guess I'll have to at least get my desktop plugged in tonight and make a copy of those editorials for everyone.
Steve Jones
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Hmmmm....Nearly as smart as a late-night, unscheduled, unauthorised system-disk optimisation performed many years ago using sophisticated compression software by an unnamed individual who also loaded the compression software inside the compressed file and then proceeded to delete both the o/s + compression software with a view to getting a clean unfragmented system disk afterwards.....luckily God invented 24 hour days and ensured the at least 8 of them would have no other employees working so that the "you've been fired" mess could be fixed up using 2 spare (at that time of the night) production machines....
Since then, password files and userlists are always small enough to fit onto a floppy.....
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try http://www.igotbackup.com/
There is a better way to do backups.
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This is exactly the reason that I bought a USB Flash Drive. Also, it comes in handy when you're at a client site and need to copy something to take back to the office.
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I also use a desktop and a laptop and I have been using a pretty nice backup strategy. Not that my way is perfect, but here's an option that works great for me:
1. Use a Maxtor OneTouch external hard drive (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000621S4Y/qid=1138134877/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-5813044-8205705?n=507846&s=electronics&v=glance)
The drive comes with Retrospect Backup software from Dantz to make doing normal and incremental backups a brieze. I run this on my desktop daily via its built-in scheduling.
2. I synchronize all important data between the desktop and laptop by using SyncToy. It's very fast and easy to use and is a free download from Microsoft. It's one of their powertoys. You can get i here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx
To make things easier between environments I have a mapped local drive "S" that has most of the folders I care about. So shortcuts work on both systems. Outlook is not in that folder as it's synched separately. I also have SyncToy synchronizing my IE favorites, and a folder on my desktop. Altogether it syncs over 20GB of data and a net changes sync runs in under 5 minutes.
3. I synchronize my Outlook email with EzOulook Sync Pro which costs $40-$60 depending upon which version you get. You can get it here: http://www.ezoutlooksync.com/.
You *could* use SyncToy to synchronize Outlook but using EzOutlook Sync allows using both copies and merging the two rather than overwriting one with the other. My outlook PST is about 2.5 GB and it syncs in about 10 minutes (net changes). Outlook has to be closed on both machines to sync. You can also sync Outlook beween more than 2 computers if desired.
I don't backup the laptop since everything I care about is synched to the desktop and then the desktop itself is backed up for additional security.
I've been using this setup for about a month now and it is great. I normally use my desktop since it has two monitors, but when its time to go on the road I sync up and take off. My laptop acts as the database server (running SQL Server 2000 and Oracle 10g) so both computers get their data from the same place. I don't currently backup the databases, but the source data and setup scripts are all backed up (it's only test data anyway).
I generally sych at night and just click both icons and walk away. They run simultaneously and finish up in about 10 minutes (computer can be used during the sync if desired).
Hope that's useful!
JT Lovell
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You obviously need a key fob (USB) backup. May I suggest this one: http://www.xpcgear.com/8gbusb2drive.html
😉
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