Do I really need to Backup?
Backing up files is the rudimentary process of making a duplicate copy of one or more electronic files to another safe location or storage device attached to your pc. It is critical to backup on a continuous basis because hard drives and other storage media that hold electronic files are not 100% reliable. Besides the possibility of mechanical failure, you also have to be concerned about fires, flood, theft, and computer viruses that can infect and erase everything on your hard drive in a matter of seconds.
Pictures, music, documents, and other important work can be lost forever if you do not have a duplicate copy stored elsewhere. ManageMore is a database application which creates hundreds of files that store critical data like your customers, invoices, inventory, vendors, and employee information, to name a few. Just like your personal photos, there is no way to retrieve your database if something unfortunate were to happen.
This means that your critical business data — and your business — could be in jeopardy, if you do not have an adequate backup strategy.
There are dozens of backup programs on the market to protect your electronic files and many off-the-shelf storage devices you can buy to hold your backup sets safely.
The real question comes down to this… “Do I need to buy or utilize a different backup program than the one already provided within ManageMore?”
It usually comes as a shock to most users, when our own technical support recommends other backup options than the built-in ManageMore backup utility.
Many commercial applications provides some rudimentary built-in backup solution to satisfy some basic security for its customers. The truth is that the simple act of just copying the entire folder where the ManageMore program/data resides and placing it onto another media is accomplishing a reliable backup.
So whats the big deal then? Why use other commercially available backup software if I can use the built-in backup or simply copy/paste ManageMore and make reliable backups in this manner?
Why use an Advanced Backup Solution?
Even though many programs today include some backup option (similar to the ManageMore backup utility), the reality is that most of these built-in rudimentary backups are for convenience purposes to the software company only. They do not offer some very important features that are only found in Advanced Backup solutions. These advanced solutions will not only help you sleep better at night, but they ensure that you have a good backup when you rely need to rely on it.
An Advanced Backup solution should be able to do the following (in order of importance):
1. AUTOMATIC NIGHTLY BACKUP… A backup software must be able to backup data based on some scheduling rules that you can program (even if logged off). For example, a backup system should be able to automatically begin backing up the files of your choice every night at 2am onto the storage device of your choice. Also, the backup software should also be able to notify you in some way when an automated backup does not complete (e.g. email notification or pop up message when you log into your computer the next day).
We cannot emphasize enough the importance of automated backups. Relying on human effort to do daily backups is often a recipe for disaster!
2. MULTIPLE BACKUP SETS… A backup software should automatically be able to create and manage multiple backup sets. In other words, the backup software should manage making a Monday Backup, Tuesday Backup, Wednesday Backup, etc. on its own and purge older backups automatically to make room for newer ones. One should never rely on a single backup set as the only protection you have and you should never rely on manual efforts to create these multiple backup sets.
3. FULL DISK IMAGE BACKUP CAPABILITIES… A backup software should be able to backup your entire drive to a single disk image file and provide a simple FULL restore option in the event of a complete hard drive failure. This allows you the quickest path to recovery in the event of a total hard drive failure.
4. BARE METAL BACKUP OPTION… A backup software should have the ability to backup open and locked files. The ability to backup a locked file cannot be understated and is not a simple thing that all backup solutions can do. Most rudimentary backup solutions simply skip files that are locked or in use by another workstation. This means your backup set can end up incomplete without you knowing.
5. CLOUD-BASED BACKUP… Although not critical to all, it is a real bonus if you can find a backup software that provides offsite cloud-based backup options. Basically, this involves the ability to send your files over the internet to an offsite facility. This protects you in the event of things like theft, fire , floods and other natural catastrophies that could wipe out your pc and all the backups located in your office only.
6. INTELLIGENT STORAGE OPTIONS… This capability is not as important as it used to be because of the large HD drives available today. However, it can still be important if you are considering entire drive backup (not just ManageMore). When storing multiple backup sets, a good backup software will conserve HD space utilizing different compression and file storage techniques like incremental and differential backup techniques. These advanced backup options help create smaller compact backup sets which alleviate the need for buying expensive large capacity storage devices.
Backup Software
There are dozens of reliable backup software solutions on the market today. There are some decent backup software solutions that already come included with the purchase of an external backup storage device too. We recommend you evaluate these free backup softwares first and check them for the capabilities mentioned above.
Some others that are highly rated are:
Genie Backup Manager Pro (customer recommended)
Acronis Backup & Recovery
Norton Ghost
An alternate and FREE option to also consider is Microsoft Backup. This is built into all of the latest Windows Operating systems and offers plenty of advanced capabilities including the all-important backup scheduling options. It is not as feature-rich or user friendly compared to some of the commerical software products mentioned above, but it is FREE.
