IT Disaster Prevention

6. Backing Up

6.1 Set up an effective back-up procedure.

• Choose a back-up system that is easy to manage and operate, with sufficient capacity to hold all your data. Most servers designed for small businesses have a built-in tape drive for back-up.
• Make two employees aware of the back-up procedure and rotate responsibility between them.
• If using tape, have a different tape for each day of the week and keep back-ups securely, off-site. Remember that back-up tapes may contain confidential information.
• Take one tape out of the cycle (and replace it) every month, and store it off-site for three to 12 months, so you can restore any files that go missing.
• Consider installing removeable 'swap' hard disks as an alternative to back-ups.

6.2 Test all your back-up systems regularly.

• Conduct tests to make sure you can restore data from the back-up.
• Use software which tells you the cause of any problems arising during back-up.