Getting the Right Backup Solution
Continuing from last weeks’ topic on backup devices, today we explore the best ways to make a backup system work. Many backup drives come with their own software which can be not only convoluted to setup but also time consuming to maintain.
Backup software is produced by many companies to service the needs of home users through to professionals and businesses however as I have previously stated, software itself can be cleverly programmed but it has no intelligence. The more cleverly written it is, the more it relies on the user to select the correct commands or put the right ticks in the right boxes.
We see many customers that have bought backup devices and have either given up on configuring the software or have found that it takes too long to back up their PC on a regular basis. Eventually they lose interest and this spent time and money goes to waste. We have also seen a number of people bring us their backup device after a catastrophe as they found it too hard to restore the data themselves.
All of this comes back to getting the right solution for the job and there are many backup solutions available. For instance if you have a business with a server computer then the amount of Windows configuration settings that are needed to make it perform become near as important as the data that it houses. For this reason a complete backup solution will not only backup user data but also the Windows configuration.
If you have a standard home computer or laptop then it is only the user data that you need to be backing up. Some backup software has the ability to do either but this software is generally more complex to setup and best handled by a tech. So what should the average computer user do?
15 years ago I had a software programmer develop a simple backup program that did all of the things that I thought necessary for the average user. Since then we’ve given it slight updates for compatibility sakes however the key part is that we install and configure it on a per user basis. This is how we ‘add intelligence’ to the software.
For normal laptops or desktop it targets only the customers’ data which is documents, photos, movies, music, emails, desktop items, Internet favourites, Family tree makers and / or tax packages. All of the above gets automatically synchronised to a backup drive in around 10 to 20 seconds when the customer plugs in their backup drive and double clicks on a desktop icon.
The above system works so quickly because it can ignore all of the Windows system files and program files. It also can ignore user data files that were previously copied – unless they have been changed and it doesn’t create duplicates of files. One more important parameter is that it does not delete files from the target backup drive.
Because of this last point a customer can delete some files from their PC (thinking that they don’t need them) and keep doing backups, which we suggest they do on average once a week. If they realise even a month down the track that they need the deleted files then all is still fine as they are still safe on the backup drive.
Once again the system is so simple that customers themselves can recover ‘essential’ files from the backup drive simply by a copy and paste command. Sorry if the above sounds technical however at $120 for a fully installed and customised backup solution we still believe it is the best on the planet and it becomes dead simple, quick and convenient to drive.
Consider what data you are storing on your computer and what happens to it if the computer is lost, stolen, corrupted, gets a bad virus or if the hard drive dies. We see around 3 new customers every week that are in a lost data situation.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
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