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Right just been off the phone to them.
To meet the requirements of the dada protection act, all files are encoded and secured with “magic card”. Back-up’s are on a continuous loop to our on-line service sever using encrypted compressed dada stream. No backs up are held on your company premises encase of theft, fraud or misuse.
I think the “magic card” is that bit of plastic that’s been stuck in me computer for the last 2 years.
I did wonder what it did, better start removing when I log off
I suspect that the “magic card” is an onboard data encryption device and is needed to ensure the security of your data as it is sent to the backup (off site) server.
Whilst it may be that your backup stuff is ‘compressed’ to save storage space, I also suspect that the backed up data is pretty limited in either it’s scope or content. Probably includes documents and spreadsheets and so on but it absolutely cannot include accounts / financial data and probably doesn’t include e-mail stuff within the databank size mentioned.
As I have recently discovered the hard way, all your e-mail stuff (Outlook) are in the form of ”.pst” files which include not just the mails but also your contacts and settings – essential stuff if you have to recover from a ‘crash’.
If you are running BCM (Business Contact Manager) then these backups are in files suffixed ”.ldf” and ”.mdf” and they are SQL Server files.
My suggestion would be to do a full and complete backup of your systems / servers rather than relying on an ”incremental” and probably compressed backup of some data files.
However, the main point still stands. For 99.9% of home users, backing up your files onto a flash drive / memory stick is perfectly adequate; it can be used over and over again without problem (unlike CD/DVD’s); you can easily ‘drag & drop’ to make copies and don’t have to rely on ‘burners’; and above all the backed up files can be restored directly to your computer without having to open them and change the file properties.
Well the problem we faced has a company was we were spending too much time on computer maintenance. I think the system were down about 2 hours a day for back-ups and ant virus scans.
So I did bring in an outside “IT” company to up date and improve our working systems.
The “point of sale” invoicing and credit payment system has work using laptops, portable printers and hand-held wireless credit card payment units and now is the main stream of payment for “opportunely” sales from the likes of yellow pages.
I have a feeling the size of the “back-ups” is in response to the limits of the mobile broadband service we currently using.
I am fairy good with computers, but I would never be able to integrate 12 laptops, 4 desktops and an office server.
It was a sizeable investment, but has saved the “layabouts” in the office a lot of paper work and time.
The “magic card” is a credit card that fits in all of our computers, (its basic chip and pin card) and the computers will not boot into windows without it.
The “magic card” system has been a pointless waste of time, people just leave them in all the time and never remove them from there computers.
This thread has hight-lighted how little myself and my staff know about current computer system, I think like most company’s the moment it “out sourced” we lose interest.
But for home users I feel that cheap dvd’s are better than flash drives. The main reason is cost, its ok spending £10 on a usb flash drive, but if you lose it, you have had it.
The only time most people copy there files is when they are moving them from an old computer to a new one. This is a one “hit” operation and buying a tool that will only be use once would be a waste of money.
I believe most home computers users have never back up there hard drives and never will.
There are weakness with all drives and file saving formats.
I do understand the problems you have had in the last few weeks and why you are looking for a “better” way to back-up your system.
There is only one real way to “back-up” doc’s files, make hard copy’s like we do. I know it takes up a lot of space but that’s what lofts are for.
Other programs are better off being stored on line storage sites, yes I understand there slow up loading and can be costly but its the only reliable way.
If they lose your dada, you have someone to blame and can claim.
Well it sure sounds as though you ought to fully review your disaster recovery plan – particularly as a business you absolutely cannot afford to lose data.
Your comment about most users not performing regular backups of their computers is frighteningly accurate. OK, you CAN recover data from a damaged or corrupted hard drive (as I can testify) but it is one hell of a long and difficult process.
For ‘home’ users there is a nifty little Windows backup utility that you can easily use. Here’s how you do it.
Insert a flash drive / removable memory stick into an empty USB port and ‘open it.
In Windows XP – click on: START –> Programmes –> Accessories –> System Tools –>
and then “Backup” (all of these are on cascading pop out menus)This will open the Windows backup utility. Simply follow the instructions as to what you want to backup and where you want it stored (i.e. the flash drive which might be called E: or F: or G: (depending on how many other installed drives you have on your computer).
When you have set it up, click “OK” and it will make a backup or duplicate copy of the files you have selected on the drive that you selected. Done.
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