How often do you test your backup?

bmewsd

I've been in the industry long enough to see so many people back stuff up yet NEVER actually test that their backups work OR that they can actually recover their data.

If you backup your stuff, have you ever tested it?

I have my stuff in the cloud (in the UK) and i test the stuff i use daily as i'm often accessing it on a tablet or phone. There's naturally some docs I won't touch on a regular basis but I will restore all my stuff to a system (it's a luxury to be able to do it) at least once a year.

I only back up the stuff i create. The unique stuff. NOT operating system files etc. This also allows me to restore to a different system such as a mac (yes i do this too).

I guarantee there'll be one file on your system that will be worth more to you than the system (whether that's in financial or emotional terms). Please, back up the stuff you've spent ages in amassing. But also, remember to at least test you can get at the stuff you've protected. especially if it's on a usb key or an external HD.

hope this helps

Elliott_Fox

Backing up just files is old school now days when it comes to business users. I have my server mirrored at rackspace so if our internal server goes down we can instantly switch to the mirror.

Johnmcl7

I don't test my personal backups, it's a simple system as I just copy the files to an external or networked drive so if it copies correctly the backup will likely be fine unless the drive itself is failing at which point I can either recreate the backup from the source or from one of the other backups.

John

esuhl

I make backups about every month or so, or after I've saved/created any new & important files. I test the backups after they have been created. And the internal drives are all partitioned suitably to keep the various OSes separate from my data.

Sharon87

Well my backup hard drive is connected to my TV to watch videos from, so I know the hard drive works! I also have a 2nd back of the most important things I want.

I had a hard drive a while back and the plug was making weird sparky noises and kept cutting out when connected to my laptop, so I bought a new hard drive to back the files up.

I have my documents backed up on Dropbox, I update it every few weeks