Reply by Steve Constantinou from Emerging IT Pty Ltd on Tuesday, 10 May, 2011 - 16:13

Do you have a server? Both offsite and onsite are great options. In the event of data loss what is your expectation of restoring the data? Always best to have a combination of both for best coverage.

Reply by Steve Constantinou from Emerging IT Pty Ltd on Tuesday, 10 May, 2011 - 16:13

Do you have a server? Both offsite and onsite are great options. In the event of data loss what is your expectation of restoring the data? Always best to have a combination of both for best coverage.

Reply by Chris from Far Edge Pty Ltd on Tuesday, 10 May, 2011 - 17:24

We recommend Shadowprotect - it says what it does, and does what it says. Most vendors have offsite replication built in now, but if you want to KISS then just use USB disks and swap daily - this will keep your costs & complexity down. Don't get tape drives.

Reply by Debbie Lindsay from iseek computing on Tuesday, 10 May, 2011 - 19:00

Backing up 1-2TB across the internet will take significant time, even if its just daily synchronisation of changes.

I'd suggest that a combination of local USB disk based backups and offsite synchronisation could be combined to work best, depending on the type of data involved and how often it changes.

It could also be worth investigating (maybe via Radio link?) NAS storage or similar with another local business so that you can have you offsite backups, without the large cost of utilising a commercial offsite backup provider (for that amount of data).

Hope that helps.

Simon

Reply by Neil McLachlan from Co Serve Consulting on Tuesday, 10 May, 2011 - 22:16

I believe it would be prudent for an organisation with 10 computers, and presumably at least 10 individual users, to develop a Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity Plan. To be of more than fleeting use, regular backups, whether on-site or off-site, need to be part of an overall recovery plan. Such a plan aims to ensure that an organisation’s critical business functions can continue in the event of business disruption or disaster. Through a process of risk assessment and response planning an organisation can decide what steps are necessary, appropriate and affordable to minimise the impact of adverse events on business operations. The technical means for making computer and business systems more resilient are readily available, but many can be quite costly and need to be justified in relation to the magnitude and likelihood of losses from adverse events. I hope these thoughts are of some use to you. Regards Neil

Reply by Grant Laing from Blended IT Solutions on Tuesday, 10 May, 2011 - 23:32

Hi, This is one question we get from a lot of our new non-profits contacts, and yes there is a lot good points here from the other answers. There are two big questions to ask yourself, 1. who is going to manage this, and do they have the discipline to do it everyday? and 2. what is your budget for this. you can have any backup system you want, but a lot of it will come down to cost. Some examples you need to consider are; a true offsite backup will need extra hardware to backup to, then this can run the replication or the changes without effecting the other systems. also you need to think of upload cost for the internet connection, there is only a few ISP's that don't add the upload data to your monthly plan, and there is no true retail internet plans that are unlimited. (check your fine print, you will probably find it will be shaped after a certain amount of data). Also the link to where you backup offsite should also be secure, a vpn at least, and the data should be encrypted over the transport as well, not just an open connection, otherwise you may as well just store it on a server open to the internet. As for the internal backup, yes usb hard disks are a good option, and they are cheap as well, but you need to plan for them to fail, so you will need one for everyday eg. Mon-Fri and at least a monthly one. This would make at least 6 hard drives. Any of the backup software available on the market today, will do what you want, but this also comes down to user/person responsible for the backup as well, if they are not very technical this has to be taken into account so that they know that the backup is done and has worked. This can be managed by your IT company as well, but again this may cost depending on the IT company. As for the disaster recovery and business continuity as mentioned above, your IT company should be doing a 3 or 6 mth image backup of your pc's and servers at the least to make sure you can be up and running with the mimimal disruption possible. This could be incorporated into your offsite backup as well. The only other consideration is legislative that needs to be considered for backups as well, as there is rules that say that any data produced in australia, by australian companies, cannot be moved overseas and must stay in australian borders. this limits the places you can send the data in the offsite backup solution. You also need to consider that you need to keep this data in some form for seven yrs, if it includes forms or the like that have been converted into digital images for the tax office alone, not to mention any other government agency you may deal with as well. all these things have to come into account you are designing a backup solution that is both onsite and offsite. But if this is all too much then the software i would recommend are symantec, paragon drive backup, shadowprotect, and CA arcserve. Some of these vendors have non-profit pricing and some don't so make sure you ask. If you want anymore info feel free to email me. Thanks Grant

Reply by from Community Computer Services on Wednesday, 11 May, 2011 - 14:24

The type of backup that would be suitable for you would depend on the structure of your IT Network. A 10 machine network 'should' have a dedicated server where ALL your data should live. Your Desktop PC's your employees use should hold NO DATA. This means that you only have 1 central point to backup each night...rather than the expense - and unholy mess, of trying to backup 10 PC's per night. For me, I have a number of non-profit clients using Storagecraft Shadow Protect, after migrating from Symnantec's Backup Exec and Backup Exec System Recovery. As an earlier poster mentioned its just far easier and more convenient to backup server images straight to a removable USB hard drive. The cost of USB Hard Drives has plummeted and you can pick up 2Tb drives for under $150 easily. Depending on your budget grab a minimum of 2 drives and alternate them. You could also grab an extra drive or two for monthly or yearly full backups and store them offsite. You can make your backup strategy as easy - or as difficult as you like. Me, I like to keep it simple and just do full server images each night to a removable drive. I don't normally muck around with grandfather - father - son systems or full - incremental/differentials. Of course, thats dependant on the data you need to backup.