“If it isn’t in three places, it doesn’t exist.”
Securing client data is a top priority at T2, and this is why we have successfully avoided losing any data over the last 14 years of business. Because we are asked what we do and how we do it, I have outlined our general approach to backup and archiving. As we migrated to the Mac operating system years ago, this post is mainly targeted towards Mac users, but almost everything can be ported to Windows.
Our backup workflow is optimized for speedy backups, fast recovery, and has been streamlined to be very affordable. The following approach provides secure, redundant backups.
First, start using Backblaze. Backblaze is an encrypted online backup solution that preforms continuous, unlimited backups of all of all your data. They use military-grade encryption, it’s automated, and very affordable ($5/month).
Second, purchase SuperDuper, an affordable backup application that allows you to create quick, easy-to-restore backups as disk images. Configured it to schedule automated backups to any drive, ideally to Network Attached Storage units. Create nightly clones of your system drives and nightly incremental backups of your data drives.
Note that we used Retrospect and Memeo extensively — both were problematic. While Retrospect worked intermittently, support is expensive, and Memeo did not work at all. (SuperDuper’s Dave Nanian is known to reply to forums, threads, and even Tweets right away.)
Third, purchase a NAS unit. We use ReadyNAS NV+ units for twice-daily backups of everything. They hold four to six hard disks (depending on the model you get) and if any one of them fails, no data is lost, as they utilize RAID-5 technology. Simply pop in another drive and it figures the rest out. Highly configurable, these units are not cheap, but are much cheaper than hiring a data restoration consultant at $5,000 per drive.
Fourth, create DVDs or external hard drive copies of your data and store them off-site (safe deposit box, home office, etc). This is a requirement if you are not using a web solution like Backblaze.
Fifth, using TimeMachine to archive different versions of files that you are working on. This functionality can be done with Backblaze as well, but restoring files is faster with TimeMachine. Be sure to configure it to not backup large directories, as those will be covered with the NAS and Backblaze.
Sixth, make sure you are separating your data from your system drive. This way, if the system drive fails, you can use your clone and you will not lose any data.
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