Review Your Backup Strategy

Take some time to review your current backup strategy and assess whether it’s still sufficient to keep your data secure. You need to determine how you will back up your data (either manually, or automate the process using an app), how often it gets backed up (periodically or continuously), and where it will be stored (on-site, off-site, or a combination of the two). Your personal backup strategy will likely depend on how much you value your data and how much time you want to devote to backing it up, but if you want to be absolutely sure your data is safe, check out Dawn’s Backup Strategies for the Paranoid, which outlines her two-pronged approach, combining both cloud and on-site backups for a completely automated and secure approach.

If you currently don’t use backup tools, or are looking for alternatives, here are some options:

Cloud Backup Tools

Cloud backup tools are attractive for a few reasons: They’re generally completely automated, relatively inexpensive and totally scalable with your needs; you won’t run out of disk space and have to add more physical storage. However, if you have a large amount of data, creating your first complete backup could take a very long time (one of our readers commented on a previous post that backing up all of his data to Mozy took an entire year!) Additionally, using a cloud backup solution means that you are relying on a third party to keep your data secure. Here are some cloud backup options:

• BackBlaze. BackBlaze offers unlimited backup storage for $5 per month. Restores are handled via a downloaded ZIP file, or having a DVD sent to you.
• Crashplan. Crashplan offers unlimited cloud storage with its Crashplan+ product, which costs $5 per month for a month-to-month plan. It works on Windows, Mac and Linux, and also offers onsite backup capability.
• Mozy. Mozy is a popular backup solution that we’ve covered extensively in the past. However, it recently dropped its unlimited plan for MozyHome users, which may make it a less appealing option. Two MozyHome plans are now available: $5.99 per month for 50GB of storage and backing up of one computer, and $9.99 per month for 125 GB and backing up three machines. Each additional 20GB of storage or computer to back up then costs an extra $2 per month.

Backing up your data to the cloud is one thing, but how about backing up the data you already have stored somewhere in the cloud, such as the emails in your webmail account, or documents stored in Google Docs? I recently outlined some techniques you can use to keep that data secure, too.

On-site Backup Tools

On-site backups allow you to quickly recover from a disaster like a hard drive failure. Aside from simply periodically copying files to an external hard drive, or burning them to a DVD or Blu-Ray disc, there are some apps you can use to create incremental backups to an external HDD, which means your data is continually backed up:

• Time Machine. Mac users are well provided-for with Time Machine, the backup tool included with OS X. It’s easy-to-use and allows you to “set it and forget it.” If you’d like to get up to speed with it, check out Beginning Mac: Time Machine.
• Paragon System Backup. Windows users have a wealth of free and paid backup options to choose from. One option worth looking at is Paragon System Backup, which costs $29.95. It provides automatic backups, with a range of customization options available. A free trial is available.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Insulinde.

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The new local backup feature should help to address one of the biggest concerns of using cloud storage/backup, which is that you’re trusting your provider with your critical information. By having your own redundant backup locally, you’re minimizing the risk of data loss (and a local backup should be quicker to restore from in the case of a catastrophe, too).

The new Windows client is available for free for both MozyPro and MozyHome customers. Mozy 2.0 for Mac should be coming later this year.

If you’re a Mozy user, let us know what you think of the new client and its new local backup feature, in the comments.

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I started my career as a UNIX sys admin, so I know the importance of having good backups, and I’ve seen so many horrible things happen to good data. As a result, I’ve learned to be pretty paranoid about backups. I even had my own little catastrophe a few years ago, when I was using Mozy to back up my data. I was taking frequent backups, and I had even tested my solution by restoring a few files; however, when it came to doing a full data restore, Mozy failed me. I was eventually able to get my data out of Mozy, but it wasn’t an easy process, and it took too long to get my data back. Now I have a two-pronged backup strategy that even the most paranoid among us should appreciate: a combination of on-site, full system, incremental backups, coupled with cloud backups.

On-site, Full System, Incremental Backups

Your full system, incremental backups should be a way to quickly recover from a complete data loss due to hard drive failure, computer theft, flying computer knocked off of a tall table or porch, small child who dumps a whole glass of orange juice into your laptop, etc. Since I have a MacBook, I use Apple Time Machine to back up to a terabyte hard drive sitting on my desk. It does hourly backups whenever I am at home and hooked up to the drive. This is my solution for when I need to do a full restore of my entire computer. By having it on a local hard drive that I control, I can quickly do a full restore without having to wait for anyone else to find my data or deal with any network-related slowdowns.

However, this solution has some serious limitations. If I have a home disaster (fire, flood, volcano, earthquake, etc.), I could easily lose my computer and my backup at the same time. I’m also highly mobile and often working on local files from business trips, vacations and coffee shops between meetings, so I don’t want to rely on a hard drive at my house for backups when I’m on the road.

Cloud Backups

Now that the full backups are taken care of, you need something that will back up all of those critical files even when you are away for a week at a conference, at a client site, or even just working remotely from coffee shops all day. My second backup solution is using JungleDisk, which backs all of my important files up to Amazon S3 every six hours. I only back up my documents and a few other critical files. In a pinch, I can restore my operating system and applications from other sources, so to keep costs down, I only back up the things that I create and that could not be easily recovered by some other means. Because I’m careful about how much data I back up to the cloud, the whole solution only costs me a few dollars a month and only takes a few minutes to complete. In addition to being able to save my data from some terrible catastrophe, I can also save myself from silly little mistakes even when I’m on the road. If I accidentally nuke a file, I can still get an older copy from my backup.

Yes, I could always be a little more paranoid, but I have a backup solution that is practical, relatively easy to maintain and seems to cover all of the most likely data loss scenarios. On the other hand, I also find that backups are becoming a little less important as I move more and more of my information into the cloud. Gmail and other online data storage mean that I have less on my hard drive, but what I do have is important, and I want to be confident that I can recover it.

How do you back up your valuable data?

Photo by Flickr user gregw66, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Back Up and Synchronize in the Same Place

Having a backup of the documents you work with on a regular basis is crucial — but why does it always have to be a separate application from whatever process you use to access your files when you’re on the go? Nomadesk makes sure that you can safeguard files and make them accessible at the same time. The service offers unlimited backups and guarantees that every time you add a new file or make a change, your file is backed up on redundant servers in the cloud.

In part, I think Nomadesk’s approach comes from the fact that it considers digital nomads the company’s target market. For individuals traveling only with a laptop, this service is ideal, no matter where you go. Even if something happens to your laptop when you’re on the far side of the globe, you can quickly recover your files — you just need to find another computer with an Internet connection. Of course, Nomadesk offers tools for synchronizing files across multiple computers, as well.

File Sharing Made Simple

Many of the other tools currently available for sharing documents and other files often require the people that you share files with to also register as users. With Nomadesk, however, a new feature allows you to share an entire folder — no matter the size — with anyone who has an Internet connection. As long as you’re logged into the tool’s desktop client, you can create a link to share any folder. From there, it’s just a matter of sending that link to whoever you want to have access to it.

To have access to the folder sharing feature, you do have to be signed up for the team version of Nomadesk ($15 per month), rather than the personal version ($50 per year).

Unlimited Usage, With Restrictions

Nomadesk does offer unlimited backups and doesn’t limit the size of files you share, but the service does have a “Fair Usage Policy:”

Although we do not set fixed limits on storage or bandwidth, we might intervene in the spirit of “fair usage” if we see a customer dramatically exceed the storage amounts of an average Nomadesk customer.

The phrasing of the policy is fairly vague — there’s no definition of what might be considered excessive or average. If you think that you might fall into the category of a heavy user, not having a clear definition of the upper limits of Nomadesk’s service could be a problem in the long run. It seems like a problem like that would be caught during the 30-day free trial, but there’s no guarantee.

Are you a digital nomad? Does Nomadesk meet your backup/syncing needs?

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What do you do when an application you’ve adopted and incorporated into your work process suddenly goes under? Nancy recently wrote about why she doesn’t trust the cloud for her work, but when you run a virtual company or are part of a virtual team, it isn’t realistic to keep all of your work on a local computer. Even if you aren’t a virtual worker, there are still apps that die quick deaths every day — their demise can leave you out in the cold.

How do you protect yourself from the pains of losing the functionality of one of your favorite apps? Here are some of my thoughts about making a smoother transition even when there’s a technical bump in the road that you didn’t anticipate.

1. Hold your geeky horses. Did you just get an invite to an app in alpha or beta? Did you just read about the debut of a new app in your favorite news source? Stop, take a breath, and wait a little bit before adopting it as the tool you’ll use at the exclusion of other tried and true offerings. Sure, there are some new apps that come out that fill a big needs gap. However, there is a difference between being an early adopter and changing your processes to accommodate an app that may or may not make it through its first year of business.
2. Back up your options, not just your data. Yes, a cool app like Projecho comes along that offers affordable and super-easy video conferencing, but clearly it isn’t the only game in town. Before you go ditching your more costly option or before you jump on a new app bandwagon for any reason, have a contingency plan — a fallback app — that you can go to immediately if the new one fails. Of course you may save a bundle moving from a WebEx to a Projecho, but look at the unanticipated costs of having to switch back over, retrain staff, and change processes.
3. Inventory your options. Once you determine the backup apps for the ones you currently use, make a list or spreadsheet that clearly spells out the apps you use, your process, and your fallback plan in case an app goes under. This handy list can make for a smoother transition with less scrambling around for new solutions if you lose an app to the bad economy, bad business models or other app destroyers.
4. Get the e-newsletters. Lately, I’ve been opting not to get the e-newsletters from apps I sign up to use because of email overload. But frankly, if I hadn’t been on Projecho’s list, I may not have seen the news of its demise as promptly as I did and would have had to wait to see it in a news source — if I even saw it at all before arriving at the site one day to find the doors had closed. Even if you never read any of the e-newsletters in detail (and in some cases you should, because they are filled with useful tips on using the product), skim the headlines before trashing. I clearly could not miss “Projecho Discontinuation” in my inbox.
5. Buy the backup plan. Clearly not all web apps involve saving your data in the cloud. Projecho is a video conferencing tool, for example, so it is just there to use when you need it. But if you are uploading — or creating — assets purely online, either get in the habit of keeping your own backups (either on a local drive, or using a cloud backup service) or pay for a more premium account that includes additional online backups. You can never back up too much, and if your web app goes kaput, you’ll be glad you did the extra work or paid a few extra bucks.

Keep in mind that some of these tips can work for you whether you’re working with cloud apps or software on your computer (WordStar, anyone?).

How do you plan for the possible demise of your favorite and most-used web apps?

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Is It Worth It?

I’m generally not in a hurry to rush out and buy the latest and greatest OS. It’s always worth reading the reviews, and following reports of bugs. In this case, it’s been a while since Snow Leopard came out, and there’s already been a .1 maintenance release that seems to have dealt with most of its known issues.

Snow Leopard is, by all accounts, not that heavy on new features, but it’s also relatively inexpensive. Most of its advantages are under the hood, with 64-bit processing and better memory management. But one feature caught my eye: the ability to synchronize the Address Book (including pictures) with Gmail or Google Apps — a feature that’s been around for a while, but which, for some reason, was previously only available to iPhone users.

Can Your Hardware Handle It?

This is an important consideration. Windows, in particular, is notorious for increasing its memory and disk space requirements with every release. And with computer prices falling all the time, it’s often tempting to just buy a new computer with the new OS pre-installed. But I decided that my Mac could work with the upgrade.

Is Your Software Compatible?

Planning for an upgrade made me realize just how much outdated and unnecessary software I had accumulated on my hard drive. Luckily, a couple of sites have compiled lists of what works, and what doesn’t, under Snow Leopard. I looked at several of them; I found this one particularly useful. It even has an application called SnowChecker that can be used to find what programs you have, and display information about their compatibility.

When you discover programs that are listed as incompatible, you can either find an upgrade (sometimes a beta version), switch to an alternative app that is compatible, or decide that you don’t need the functionality it provides.

Do You Have Backups of Everything, In Case Something Goes Wrong?

When preparing for major upgrades, I probably spend more time making sure that all of my data is backed up than I do anything else. Of course, I use the OS’s built-in tools like Time Machine, and I store multiple copies of customer data on an external drive, in the cloud through Dropbox, on my smartphone through Missing Sync, and on my company’s development server (which itself gets backed up). But it never hurts to make manual backups of really irreplaceable data, so — for example — I made backups of my address book in VCF, CSV and Address Book Archive format. You might think that I’m overdoing it, but I felt that the time was definitely worth taking after learning of Sidekick’s data loss and an apparent bug in OS X relating to guest accounts that could cause it to lose data. As Kevin over at jkOnTheRun says: “Services fail…what are you doing about it?”

Do You Have the Time to Plan and Execute the Upgrade?

Of course, doing all of this takes time, which is why I prefer to undertake projects like this after business hours. Even if it means missing a beautiful fall weekend. That way, I don’t have to interact with clients or put out fires, and being offline for a while won’t make a difference. I picked up a couple of good books at my local college bookstore where I bought Snow Leopard, and got to page 50 of Terry Pratchett’s “Nation” while waiting for the installation, so it was time well spent!

So far, I have been extremely pleased with how much faster many of the programs I use run under Snow Leopard, especially those that are available in 64-bit mode. And I’m happy with many of the OS’s new features. So for me, the time spent has definitely been worth it.

Have you upgraded to the latest operating system? How has it worked for you?

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Don’t get me wrong. I do make limited use of cloud computing applications, especially Gmail. But mostly, I don’t feel comfortable putting my entire computing life “in the cloud”. Here’s why.

Access. Putting all my data in the cloud means I need an Internet connection to be able to do my work. This limits the times and places that I can work, and makes it more difficult to develop a plan to keep my business running in case of a utility outage. I can’t complete work offline on my laptop’s battery power and then make a short visit to an Internet connection to upload it.

Backups. Very few cloud services provide for making a local backup of customers’ online data, leaving me to trust the service itself to do it. I prefer the security of having my own data backups.

Data Loss. One particular issue that I’ve experienced with cloud services is with those set to sync with other devices or services. If one of the sync locations experiences data loss, the other locations see the lost items as deleted and delete them from their storage as well. The multiple locations don’t act as a backup, because being synced makes them vulnerable to multiplying data loss that occurs at any one of the sync locations. So I have to keep data in an additional (not synced) location to have a true backup.

Service Stability. When I buy software for my computer, I have it for as long as it is compatible with my machine’s operating system. If the software’s designer goes out of business, I can continue using it. With SaaS cloud services, I am dependent on those services continuing to operate to be able to do my work. If a cloud service closes up shop, which has been known to happen literally overnight with startup companies, I can at the minimum experience work flow disruption and possibly total data loss. Even financially stable companies like Google sometimes discontinue SaaS products, forcing users to look for a replacement, and to find a way to port data between incompatible applications.

Privacy & Security. Last, but definitely not least, putting data in the cloud raises a whole host (pun intended) of security and privacy issues. It is easier to protect data that is held on a single local machine than it is to guard against breaches on a server-based cloud system. Having a public point of log-in raises the risk of security breach via compromised password, and data can also be breached in general server attacks, not even specifically targeted to your data.

Data held on someone else’s servers is also more vulnerable to being accessed legally by subpoena than data held on a local machine (which requires a search warrant to access). A cloud service usually has no reason to invest resources in fighting legal requests for data held on their service.

So for now, I’ll keep my data (or most of it) on the ground.

Do you trust the cloud?

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LifestreamBackup can archive a variety of services, including:

• Flickr
• Twitter
• Delicious
• Zoho
• Google Docs
• Photobucket
• Basecamp
• Gmail

The site says that YouTube and Facebook backups are coming soon, and welcomes suggestions for services to add in the future. You can back up multiple accounts on each service.

As I added my account information to allow LifestreamBackup access to the data I have stored with each service, I noticed something about the process. While the site used Flickr and Google Doc’s authentication systems, to back up any of the other services, I had to provide the app with my user name and password. I know that some of the services supported, such as Twitter, offer authentication options that are not currently used by LifestreamBackup. Personally, I’d feel more comfortable if the site was able to work without requiring me to hand over my passwords, or having to remember to update it whenever I change my passwords.

You can see at a glance when your accounts have been backed up through LifestreamBackup’s history function. When you first sign up, it can take about 24 hours to get all of your data backed up, which can make your history seem a little sparse. However, after longer usage, the ability to sort through backups by service can come in handy. It doesn’t hurt, either, that each backup is labeled with the date of the backup. The service can be set to back up each of your accounts on a daily or weekly basis. If something happens, like a hacked account or problems with a service provider, you can download a copy of your backup at any time. The interface isn’t particularly complex — but it doesn’t need to be. You can tell at a glance how to add new accounts and to download your backups. You can also set your account to send you email updates about your backups, ranging from an option of an email every time a backup is performed to a weekly digest of your backup activity, as well as the option to receive no emails.

The service allows you to back up as much as 20 GB of data, with your choice of a monthly subscription fee of $4.95 or a yearly fee of $29.95. If you need more storage, you can use the LifestreamBackup service to save data to your own Amazon S3 account for $14.95. While using the service with your own S3 account seems fairly straightforward, I’m hopeful that LifestreamBackup will eventually offer a service with more storage — I have 20 GB of data in my email alone.

Do you back up your lifestream data?

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LinkedIn

Back in the day, I had a Rolodex packed with information. I made notes that went far beyond a person’s current contact information, like where they had worked in the past. I know I’m not the only one: I know several salesmen who got into major fights when they changed employers over who owned their Rolodex. These days, I rely on LinkedIn for a lot of that kind of information.

Luckily, LinkedIn makes it easy to keep a record of all the contacts you’ve made through the site, as well as back up your own profile. In the event that something happened to my account, I’d be back up and running in no time.

To export your contacts, click on “Contacts.” If you scroll down to the bottom of that page, you’ll see an “Export Connections” link. You can export your contacts as either a .csv file or a .vcf file, which you can easily load into most address book applications. (LinkedIn provides instructions on how to load your contacts for commonly used apps.) You can also save your profile as a PDF by clicking the PDF icon on your Profile page.

Facebook

Finding a good way to back up your Facebook profile can be something of a problem: Many of the applications that you can use to do so will trigger Facebook’s robot behavior detection systems, marking you as a spammer and losing you your account. So far, SocialSafe seems to be one of the better options. It uses Facebook’s API to access your information safely.

SocialSafe is an inexpensive application, priced at $2.99. It runs on Adobe Air, and will back up your photos (including those not uploaded by you but tagged with your name), your friends and your profile. The main drawback with SocialSafe is that there isn’t an easy way to put that information back into Facebook if something were to happen to your account — you’d have to upload photos and add friends manually.

Twitter

While there are a few different applications around that will back up your Twitter account, I prefer TweetBackup for a very simple reason: It’s automatic. Once you’ve set up your account, the site runs a daily backup with no action necessary on your part. You also don’t have to download anything or give up your Twitter password, both of which make me feel much better about using an application like this.

TweetBackup doesn’t offer automatic restoration of the data, either, though the site’s developers say that such a feature is in the works. You can only archive 3,200 tweets at a time — but that’s actually a result of Twitter’s policy of maintaining an archive of only 3,200 tweets and removing older tweets.

Do you back up your social media profiles?

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But as Paisano wrote recently, current conditions won’t last forever. Many sites will eventually become fee-based; others will shut down when their funding runs out, or when their owners decide to move in a different direction.

So when I evaluate a product that I’d like to incorporate into my company’s workflow — especially a product that will be visible to clients — I try to consider the product’s feature set, along with the issues raised in Judi’s 2007 WWD post. I also ask the following questions:

• Is the product open? Like a lot of people, I prefer open source projects. But I will consider proprietary systems if I am comfortable with how my data is stored and backed up, and whether the product allows me to do my own backups.
• Does it use standard formats that are easy to import and export? If the product will interface with my existing data, I need to evaluate how much work it will be to prepare the data for use by the new product.
• Can I host the product or software myself? Because my company does web hosting, we have easy access to web servers, bandwidth and backup systems. Therefore, I tend to prefer software that we can host ourselves. Maintaining a web server isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, although most of the major hosting companies make it really easy, as long as you’re willing to keep up with security patches and so on.
• If I can’t host the software myself, how reliable and robust are the product’s servers? Of course, even major services (like Gmail) have occasional outages. Here in Seattle, a fire caused a significant outage for many web sites just a couple of weeks ago. So I need to decide how my company will deal with such outages if we adopt the software.
• How will using this product affect my bottom line? Managing any new product requires investing time and resources to install, set up, maintain and troubleshoot. Proprietary services are priced many different ways, and may require an up-front cost, plus continued license fees or service contracts. And while open source products don’t require license fees, many open source software companies offer service contracts. I need to decide whether I want to invest in such a contract, or whether I think I can rely on the user community. Whether open source or not, it’s always a good idea to look at the complexity and maturity of the product, how likely it is to need support, and how active the user base is.
• What is my exit strategy should the product no longer be available? I need to decide how I will get my data, and plan for alternatives, if the product goes away.
• How likely is it that the service provider will be available in the long run? This one’s tricky, since as a small businessperson, I’m hardly in a position to see, much less analyze, the business plans and financial statements of every producer I consider. But there is a fair amount of public information available, so I need to do what due diligence I can.

It’s never possible to plan for every contingency. I had to scramble to replace my Sunrocket VoIP service when that company ceased operation, and I still have some SyQuest backup disk cartridges somewhere for which no players are now available. But with a little common sense, it’s possible to avoid putting all of our technological eggs in one basket and becoming too dependent on any one service.

How do you evaluate what new services to include in your workflow?

Image by stock.xchng user CraigPJ

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