Looking for backup ideas for fathers small business

[BHeemsoth]

I need a backup solution for my fathers small business. It will mainly be used to backup a quickbooks file on a regular basis and some word and maybe excel documents.

The capacity can be anywhere from a few hundred mb's to a few gigs.

Hard drives and USB drives are both up for consideration, although I would like to keep this external.

I would like the backups to be automated so that certain files or folders will be backed up each night.


Is there any cheap software that will accomplish this?

Are there any usb thumb drives that have backup programs built in like some of the external hard drives (like the maxtor one touch backup)

I would like to keep this as cheap as possible, since I am buying my xmas gifts on a tight budget this yar.

 

[Slowlearner]

A quick and easy solution would be a second hard drive, and a replicator program which can be set to incrementally replicate any folder at set times. I highly recommend Karen's Replicator from www.karenware.com.

 

[DaveSimmons]

If the backup only runs after people leave, then ideally you'd have _2_ backup devices and alternate taking one home (2 hard drives, 2 thumb drives). Tape drives are also good for this, you buy 1 drive plus a stack of tapes and cycle through them, keeping some off-site.

Otherwise you have no protection against theft (happened at my last job), fire, flood / burst water pipe, lightning / other massive surge, or a virus that wipes / corrupts files.

For software, you could probably get someone in the Software forum to write you a little script program to copy files, and you could use WIndows' scheduler to run it.

 

[BHeemsoth]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
If the backup only runs after people leave, then ideally you'd have _2_ backup devices and alternate taking one home (2 hard drives, 2 thumb drives). Tape drives are also good for this, you buy 1 drive plus a stack of tapes and cycle through them, keeping some off-site.

Otherwise you have no protection against theft (happened at my last job), fire, flood / burst water pipe, lightning / other massive surge, or a virus that wipes / corrupts files.

For software, you could probably get someone in the Software forum to write you a little script program to copy files, and you could use WIndows' scheduler to run it.

Its a sole proprietership run out of our home. He is the only employee that has access to the office, so theft is not an issue. Keeping backups offsite is not really a worthwile concern since if our house burns down, so does the office and both backup devices.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The theft we had was a break-in not employee theft.

If the house is ever empty, your dad should get in the habit of moving the backup device each morning then bringing it back each night. If he's trainable like this, the Maxtor software is probably good enough.

Dad is ready to stop working for the day:
1. gets Maxtor out of closet
2. plugs in, pushes button
3. backup ensues

Dad starts his new day
1. unplugs Maxtor and takes to closet

The only problem is that a Maxtor costs more than a flash drive, but if the maxtor keeps several versions of the file then it is safer (can go back to a 2-days-ago version if something bad happens).

I don't see any of the cheap flash drives listing backup software, even the midrange ones just advertise encryption software rather than backup software. But again, you might find someone in Software who thinks wrting a backup script would be fun.

 

[BHeemsoth]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
The theft we had was a break-in not employee theft.

If the house is ever empty, your dad should get in the habit of moving the backup device each morning then bringing it back each night. If he's trainable like this, the Maxtor software is probably good enough.

Dad is ready to stop working for the day:
1. gets Maxtor out of closet
2. plugs in, pushes button
3. backup ensues

Dad starts his new day
1. unplugs Maxtor and takes to closet

The only problem is that a Maxtor costs more than a flash drive, but if the maxtor keeps several versions of the file then it is safer (can go back to a 2-days-ago version if something bad happens).

I don't see any of the cheap flash drives listing backup software, even the midrange ones just advertise encryption software rather than backup software. But again, you might find someone in Software who thinks wrting a backup script would be fun.

I would like to avoid getting a hard drive if possible...the quickbooks file is only 2.3mb, and he doesnt have more than 200mb of other files i would think. A 256 or 512mb drive should be fine.

 

[Slowlearner]

OK, Circuit City has SanDisk Cruzer® Micro Portable USB Storage (SDCZ4-512-A10) for $45 with a 15$MIR. But check out Karen's replicator (free download)