Martyn Walker | Software Architect | Hiker And Hacker

As a software developer with hosting development and management experience its not unusual for me to be asked to help someone who has lost a file. There are three places a backup can sometimes be found:-

1. There is a proper backup strategy in place.
2. An adhoc backup may include a copy, to find these think outside the box, did you zip it up and email it to someone?
3. A deleted file can be restored or pieced together from file cache or fragments not yet overwritten.

I am surprised at the number of hosts that do not perform backups. Some will offer extra disk space so you can do it yourself for a fee, some will handle backups for you for a fee, but few do it automatically. The rule has to be If you do not maintain backups then its unlikely anyone else will.

Relying on your programmers has some merit but you should not rely on it. Programmers don’t like to write their code twice and so we find a way to automate the process to ensure we have the best possible solution.

The best backup strategy
Any backup strategy is better than none but if you want an easy to use and cost effective solution to backup several PCs/Macs/Mobiles as well as your hosted applications then check out Microsofts Home Server. It requires a separate PC to operate but nothing special. This is one of those applications you hear little about. It’s not expensive and is really good at what it claims to do (see this link for the sales pitch).

Expanding the amount of disk space available is as simple as plugging in a new external USB drive. So you can dig out those discarded drives and use them as additional space. Home server not only keeps a backup but you can use it to store important items such as photos and videos and it will make duplicate copies, so if a hard disk fails all you need to do is throw in another and it will take care of duplicating the files again for you.

Access to TV, music and all you media is available 24/7. Connect it to your wirelss router and the process of sharing your media around the house really does become straightforward.

Backup for business
I have a few offsite Linux servers, some more than 4,000 miles away. Home server backs these up every day and retains as many versions of those files as you think is convenient. By default you can recover any file up to 3 months old but I have extended this to 12.