By Trent Sosnowski

In today's world, computers are used as tools in almost every type of business to store information about customers, transactions, inventory and other data pertinent to the business. This data is usually stored on the computer's internal hard drive so that the computer program using the data has immediate access to it.

This data is extremely important to our businesses, and it deserves more thought than most of us probably give it. How many times have you considered what would happen if you came to work one day, turned on the computer and all of your customer information and data were gone? Or how about if the computer wouldn't turn on at all?

There are many ways you can lose the data on your computer. The internal hard drive could fail. It is a physical device with moving parts, and most things with moving parts will wear out eventually, some sooner than others. Another way you could lose your data is if the whole computer were destroyed from a natural disaster like a flood, hurricane or tornado. And then there is always theft, where a thief breaks into your office after hours and takes the whole computer. Let's not forget operator error, where someone using the computer inadvertently completes the wrong function or operation making your data unusable or destroyed. Whatever the cause, losing important data on your computer can happen and should be considered a risk to your business operations.

The good news is that you can manage that risk by performing daily backups of your data. There are many different methods of backing up your data. It can be backed up to floppy disks, Zip disks, CDs, DVDs and USB flash drives. Most management software programs have an operation built in to back up the data used in the program where you can specify the location where the data should be backed up. The media

you use to back up data needs to be reliable. Advances in technology have made newer backup media more reliable than before. CDs, DVDs and USB flash drives are newer media than the floppy disks and are preferable for backing up your data.

To back up to CDs or DVDs, your computer system must have a CD or DVD writer installed. Most software programs cannot directly write data to this type of media, and usually another software package is needed to format the CD or DVD first so that other programs can write directly to it. There are several packages on the market from which to choose. A good place to start is the support department for your management software. Contact them and find out what they recommend.

Backing up your data should be done daily, not just when you remember to do it. Remember you are managing a risk that, in a worst-case scenario, could potentially shut down your operations until resolved. The preferred method of backing up your data would be to use a separate item of media (CD, DVD, flash drive, etc.) for each day of the week and schedule the backup for the same time each business day.

For example, let's say your business is open six days a week, Monday through Saturday, closed on Sundays, and you choose to back up to CDs. You would want to have six formatted CDs labeled "Monday," "Tuesday," "Wednesday," etc. It would also be a good idea to write on each CD the date you started using it. On Mondays, you would back up your data using the Monday CD, on Tuesday you back up to the Tuesday CD, and so on. Keep these backup disks organized in a place where they are safe and not subject to extreme temperatures. When the CD gets full or you decide you want to start another CD after a predetermined time, write the ending date on the CD and store it in a safe place.

At least once a week, you should perform a separate backup that will be then stored off site in a safe place. In the event your office is struck by a disaster such as a flood or a fire, you'll have a reliable backup disk available that is, at the most, one week old.

It's not a good idea to continue to back up every day to just one CD or media type. It's equivalent to putting all of your eggs in one basket. If something bad should happen to that one CD or item of storage media (it gets misplaced, broken or damaged), you would lose your access to all of that backed up information.

Sometimes a computer will give you a sign before it crashes in the form of a warning message or by making some odd or unusual sounds. There's nothing wrong with performing a backup if you think the computer is about to crash or lose all of its data. That way, if it does crash, you will have your data just as it was immediately before the computer became disabled.

Don't wait for disaster to strike! Set up a procedure for backing up your computer data and make it a regular part of your daily business routine.

Trent Sosnowski is the Manager of the Technical Support Department at Sentinel Systems Corporation in Lakewood, Colorado. Sentinel Systems Corporation is the manufacturer of mini-storage and self-storage software for property management, gate access security, and individual door alarms. We have been serving self-storage operators for over 30 years. For more information, visit www.SentinelSystems.com or call 800-456-9955.