Test Your Restores

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This mornings paper had an article about a website owner who’s server was taken over by hackers. In the process the server contents and database were deleted.  The unfortunate thing was the backups the owner thought were working failed during the restore.  So in addition to having to deal with the hassle of having websites down and rebuilding, the website owner now has to pay thousands to a data recovery company with no guarantee that the data can be recovered.

Unfortunately this is not that unusual of an occurrence. Ask anyone in the data recovery or disaster recovery business and you will hear similar stories.  These events could all be avoided if people test the backups they make by doing a test restore.

It is an all too common event, in the work of making sure all your data is backed up, no thought is given on how to restore it. One of the reasons I tend to stay away from some backup software is that the way they store the backup is proprietary to that backup system. E.g. you have to reinstall the backup software to restore your data.  In many cases people never even take the time to learn how to do a restore until they “need” to do one. The last thing you need to be doing during a stress of a disaster is learning how to use software. 

I prefer backup software that stores the backup in a manner that is available to be restored even without having to reinstall the backup software. In this way if I need to quickly recover important files back, it is as easy as copying them from a backup drive.

No matter what backup software you use it is important to test the restores from periodically to make sure that you are comfortable with the procedure. This is just as important to make sure your backup is working correctly.  How often you check it will depend on how important the data is to you, but I would suggest several times a year.  If you start getting errors on your backup media, immediately replace it.