Data Loss Protection and Recovery

[dreambeliever]

How's everyone here? I hope you are all doin' great. I just need some suggestions from you guys. We are running a PS and Xbox games and accessories store and will soon open our online shop too since business is quite doing good. We just need some info and suggestions on some programs or software that can prevent data loss or a recovery system in case of sudden accident. If you know some good software or any other effective solutions, please feel free to reply here. Thank you! Cheers!

 

[Deathcom3s]

If it's a central server, either dedicated or a VPS of some kind, then there are a lot of professional backup solutions out there. I've configured and used R1soft before, and it has been pretty reliable. Though, rather than being disk-based, it's block-based, so it works a bit differently.

Typically, your web host has backup options that you can use. I would recommend contacting your host for questions about backups, they'll be able to provide you with accurate information as they're more familiar with your setup than we are.

 

[Dr Super Good]

This site is not really an appropriate place to discuss backup solutions. You should much rather ask on a dedicated IT site where IT experts with real industrial experience frequent.

In any case the basic procedure is to have redundancies (spare computers) and a backup. If you are a small business it might be best to rent a server from a server farm to host the site rather than host it on a computer at your place of work. Not only are such servers usually more reliable but they also add some form of redundancy tolerance since if the hardware fails for the server they will likely assign you a new one pretty quickly. For data backup the traditional method was periodic physical backups stored off-site, however as a small business it is probably more economical to use some form of cloud storage solution as a backup instead since they act as an off-site backup and are themselves backed up. Any data stored locally at outlets should probably be backed up either at the end of every day (before employees go home) or maybe once a week at the end of the week (depends on cost and risk of data loss).

Data security is also important, especially if you store any details about clients. Most countries have an equivalent to the Data Protection Act. Such legal documentation can lead irresponsible data owners criminally liable if something goes wrong. This is why I recommend asking this sort of question on a more IT orientated board since people on such boards might have experience and advice about such subjects.

 

[dreambeliever]

We'll be talking to a consultant soon. I'm just trying to get an overview. ^^
I was also checking out reviews online and this company has pretty good reviews. I'll ask the consultant if it is something that will work out for our needs. Hopefully he can point us in the right direction.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Yeah, I'm a dedicated server engineer for a large web hosting company, and one thing that I've noticed is a lot of people jump into things like this without consulting with a system administrator of some kind. Even if it's just on a contract basis, they can give you a lot of good advice on guidance as far as recommended backup solutions, redundancy (a lot people run RAID 1 on their servers, in addition to daily backups to a secure, remote location), network configuration, etc.

Doing the necessary research and leg-work now will save you a world of headache down the road. Believe me, I've seen people lose a lot of hard work and data because they were careless and didn't understand what they were doing.