Home PC disaster recovery plan?

[markmarkymark]

Evening All.

Was just wondering how many here run their own business from their home computers - or indeed I should probably say ‘business computers’ at home?

Up until July I was full time employed but also had some part time consulting work which I did from home (with site visits). From July I have been running my own limited company from home (as a full time consultant) and love every minute of it..

Well .. I have been backing up some files today and also printing some important VAT / account documents (yep … tis a shame but I spend much time doing these tasks when I would like to be out on the road earning the money). It got my thinking - heaven forbid - what would happen if there was a house fire ….

Believe me, I’m not a pessimist at all... but apart from losing loved ones (most important) and possessions (less important) I would also lose my entire business (and therefore livelihood).

Client details
Accounts
Project work
Expenses
Tax returns
Etc, etc etc

All of the above (and more) are in electronic form…

So, I have burned a disc (DVD) today with most of what I need but it was a bit of a pain to do. It’s in the garage now – but that’s hardly ideal is it?

For others in my position, what do you do (other than take out insurance of course!)

Ta

Mark

[marky]

Backup on External hdd, and also keep backups on disks kept at my mother in laws

[Ramrod]

Try one of these

---------- Post added at 20:54 ---------- Previous post was at 20:51 ----------

......perhaps you could upload any really critical data to some server somewhere?

[AndyCambs]

Bit like backing anything up really - most people only think about backing up data when there is a problem and they CAN'T retrieve the original...

I would backup everything to an external HD & put it in a safe deposit box, then run incremental backups to solid state memory, daily, posting the 'disk' to a poste restante, they could be collected weekly & the disks re-used.

I just made that up, but it could work with a decent backup program, provided the incremental backup isn't too large for the memory card???

[cookie_365]

Haven't tried it, but if you've got a googlemail account you can store more than 2GB as attachments - could you email yourself your backups ?

[poolking]

Originally Posted by cookie_365

Haven't tried it, but if you've got a googlemail account you can store more than 2GB as attachments - could you email yourself your backups ?

Ok but worse case scenario, what if google's gmail service goes tits up and they can't restore your emails? Better to store offline and offsite.

[Graham M]

Could say, the DVD not be stored in a Safe Deposit Box at a bank?

[SMHarman]

Or even a mates / parents house. Wherever it is a courier company can have it to you next day which is a damn site quicker than recovering than getting a new pc etc.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by markmarkymark

For others in my position, what do you do (other than take out insurance of course!)

Since I'm only using about 100MB of 700MB on my business website, every time I run a backup of the business info on my computer onto a USB pen I also store a backup of it on the website.

I'd love to work from home but, I'm as thick as pig slurry when it comes to things like that.

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by markmarkymark

Evening All.

Was just wondering how many here run their own business from their home computers - or indeed I should probably say ‘business computers’ at home?

Up until July I was full time employed but also had some part time consulting work which I did from home (with site visits). From July I have been running my own limited company from home (as a full time consultant) and love every minute of it..

Well .. I have been backing up some files today and also printing some important VAT / account documents (yep … tis a shame but I spend much time doing these tasks when I would like to be out on the road earning the money). It got my thinking - heaven forbid - what would happen if there was a house fire ….

Believe me, I’m not a pessimist at all... but apart from losing loved ones (most important) and possessions (less important) I would also lose my entire business (and therefore livelihood).

Client details
Accounts
Project work
Expenses
Tax returns
Etc, etc etc

All of the above (and more) are in electronic form…

So, I have burned a disc (DVD) today with most of what I need but it was a bit of a pain to do. It’s in the garage now – but that’s hardly ideal is it?

For others in my position, what do you do (other than take out insurance of course!)

Ta

Mark

DVD's are all well and good but if you scratch your backup before you need it then you're stuffed, make sure you print a copy of everything that's important and feasibly printable and keep it somewhere safe.

[swoop101]

A better idea is to use an online data storage system such as

http://www.xdrive.com/
http://www.ibackup.com/
http://www.mydocsonline.com/

there are loads more (google is your friend)

that way your stuff is safe and sound from any dangers.

[SMHarman]

The other thing we use is a Buffalo Link Station

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=75274

And Sync Toy

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

To syncronise the files off PC/other network drives onto the drive.
The LinkStation can have a belt and braces approach enabling you to plug a 160Gb USB drive into it which will back up the content of itself, thus backing up the backup. You just need somewhere offsite to store it.

The backup of the backup is also semi encrypted, so where it is left cannot read it unless they have a linkstation.

[Damien]

How about a large Cap USB key, you keep with you? (Passworded of course!)