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A hard disk failure or computer theft can severely
disrupt or even destroy your business unless you have
an adequate backup of your valuable data.
Most normal backups just store your files - you'll
have to spend many hours re-installing and setting
up your operating system and applications before you
can get back to work again.
At WebAngel, we use a method that is fast, simple,
and involves no downtime.
It gives us a image of our hard disk, complete with
system files so that we do not have to reinstall all
our applications again.
We just plug in the storage disk, run the backup software,
and unplug the disk when the backup is finished.
Our Backup System
1. We use the award winning "True Image" backup
software from Acronis. This company provides the best
backup
software
we have
found.
It
is downloadable from the internet at a cost of around
$US50. Visit www.acronis.com for
more information about the capabilities of this excellent
product.
2. Our backups are stored on a normal hard disk that
is mounted into a hot swappable USB 2.0 external drive
case.
This means that we can just plug in the drive and commence
a backup at any time it suits us.
The backup can be done while you are working on the
computer, but performance will be affected.
Other Notes:
- You can backup several computers on to separate
files onto one large removable disk.
- Backup files are compressed,
so the capacity of the backup disk can be smaller
than the disk you are backing up.
- USB (or firewire) external drive cases cost around
$A100 each
- 120 gigabyte drives currently cost around $150
- Backing up 30 gigabytes of data takes under 1
hour.
- The backed up drive can be attached as a disk volume.
You can read it, and restore individual files very
easily.
- Select a backup frequency that is appropriate.
Daily or weekly are common intervals.
- We recommend that you have 2 backup drives, and
that one of them is always stored
away from your business premises. If a fire destroys
your office, you will be able to restore your computer
data quickly and easily.
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