Ben Gamblin Online - Blog: Backups save the day!

Backups save the day!

29 Jun '08, 12:45

If anyone reading this doesn't regularly backup their important data, then you may wish to start doing so. It is often said there are two types of people - those who backup, and those who wish they had.

The reason I have put out that little warning is that my server's system drive died today. One minute it was working fine, the next it had gone Ka-put. Luckily for me, it wasn't my main data drive but it did contain the databases that this website relies on - databases that contain all my blog entries, meta data on files, map locations and music library statistics.

Fortunately I have an automatic daily backup program running which takes copies of these databases plus essential server configuration files, archives them, and copies the archive to the data drive. The latest backup took place at 1AM this morning, about 8 hours before the system died. If my backups weren't daily, I would have lost the last blog entry and my most recent music statistics.

Rather obviously, normal service has now been restored. A spare 15GB hard drive has come to the rescue until I can get a newer drive installed, and thanks to having those configuration files handy, the server was restored with only about 3-4 hours of downtime.

I'm going to look at getting a couple of 500GB (or maybe 750GB) drives and setting up a mirrored RAID array to protect my storage drive. Although most of that is backed up, my music takes more space than I have room for on secondary storage. I'm also going to look at improving my daily backup system so that it copies to a flash drive and also sends a copy to a remote server by FTP.

But it just goes to show that even the most basic forms of backup can save the day, so once again I urge everyone to BACKUP YOUR DATA!

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