Everybody knows that backing up (ie. copying) all the important data on a computer is essential – there may be failures within the computer itself, or some sort of disaster that ruins everything, like a fire or flood. But simply backing up the data is not enough.

Let us take two scenarios ; a single home computer, and a small business network with 5 computers plus a server. In each case, the sensible owners have arranged to store all their documents and files and databases and emails in a particular location (for example, the home user may create a folder called “data” and save all files under that, and the business user may create a folder called “data” on the central server and enforce a policy that all business information is stored in there). This makes it easy to undertake backups, because now all they only need to copy the “data” folder and everything in it.

Let us further assume that in each scenario, the owners have automated the backup. There are dozens of alternatives available, but for example a home user might purchase the latest copy of WinZip (winzip.com) which allows you to schedule a repeating job for a convenient time that will copy some data, compress it into a single much smaller file (and encrypt it if you want, for added security), and then write that file onto a second hard disk, CD, DVD or other device. A business user might install something like Arcserve (ca.com) and a tape-drive, and set up a job to copy all data to a different tape each evening.

Does this make them disaster-proof? Alas not. There are two further issues to consider – where the “safe” backup data is kept, and how you can use it if & when you need to.

Firstly, if the backups are kept near the computer system, or even in the same building, what happens if there is a fire, as recently happened at the Waterfront and Sound Centre? Of course, your backups go up in smoke just as the computer system does. All gone, and you have a huge job in front of you recreating all your data (if that is even possible). The solution? Keep backups offsite ie. in another building or location. A home user might keep the backup at work or with a relative, a business user might keep, say, the backup from each Wednesday at home or in a bank.

Secondly, if all your original equipment is destroyed and you replace it with new stuff, will you be able to read and use your backups? If your tape-drive was 5 years old, it is almost certain that you will not be able to buy a similar unit, and you will be very lucky if you can find anything that uses the same tapes let alone is able to read the data on them. If you are using backup software on a home computer, similarly, was it an old version that the current version cannot understand?

To summarise, you need to regularly backup your important data – but you also need to make sure that your backups will be available and usable come the day you rely on them!