PSA: Always check your backup logs... and your backups

[Red Squirrel]

I was going through my logs, something I should be doing more often.

Turns out two of my databases were not being backed up since I changed the passwords. Thankfully I caught it before something bad happened, and they were not very important databases either. In fact I don't think they change very much.

But yeah, worth checking this stuff more often.

Also a good idea to check the actual backups to make sure they're properly being created where they're suppose to be, and that it's the right files.

 

[RichUK]

NSFW http://legacy-cdn.smosh.com/smosh-pit/042011/bra-watermellon.jpg

 

[HAL9000]

Same thing happened to me a while ago, now i've set it up so that I get notified if something doesn't get backed up.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Disaster recovery preperation and testing is kinda important, that's why just about every major business has at least 1 department of people devoted to it.

 

[Crusty]

Shouldn't the cron job have thrown an error and then sent an e-mail with the errors to you?

 

[SlitheryDee]

I don't do backups. What is it that I'm going to back up anyway? I don't keep photos or anything like that. AFAIK I don't possess any important digital documents. If every computer in my house caught on fire today I'd just order new parts, build another computer, and redownload all my games from steam.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Shouldn't the cron job have thrown an error and then sent an e-mail with the errors to you?

It did. The PSA was to actually check those once in a while, and not assume that the backups are running fine.

 

[Phoenix86]

I don't do backups. What is it that I'm going to back up anyway? I don't keep photos or anything like that. AFAIK I don't possess any important digital documents. If every computer in my house caught on fire today I'd just order new parts, build another computer, and redownload all my games from steam.

Damn, why didn't I think of loading the HR/accounting/etc. databases into steam.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't do backups. What is it that I'm going to back up anyway? I don't keep photos or anything like that. AFAIK I don't possess any important digital documents. If every computer in my house caught on fire today I'd just order new parts, build another computer, and redownload all my games from steam.

You don't have anything at all? where do you store important documents, your resume, emails, etc? You don't do any computer related projects where you save something? Whether coding, or a custom map for a game, or anything? Sometimes you have to backtrack and ask yourself what you would REALLY loose if at this very moment all your machines were vaporized. It's surprising just how much stuff we can have and forget the importance of it, until it's lost.

 

[SlitheryDee]

You don't have anything at all? where do you store important documents, your resume, emails, etc? You don't do any computer related projects where you save something? Whether coding, or a custom map for a game, or anything? Sometimes you have to backtrack and ask yourself what you would REALLY loose if at this very moment all your machines were vaporized. It's surprising just how much stuff we can have and forget the importance of it, until it's lost.

I consider a resume to be something I won't need in the near future, and that I could whip up in an afternoon if I did come to need one. I do have stuff saved on my computer, but nothing terribly important. My e-mail is stored on a google server somewhere. Any receipts i might need are accessible through various websites. I honestly can't think of anything I have that is worth the hassle of backing up.

 

[Beev]

I reformat every few months and keep nothing. I don't see why a normal user would need to backup ANYTHING for non-professional reasons. We aren't that important...

 

[HardcoreRobot]

I reformat every few months and keep nothing. I don't see why a normal user would need to backup ANYTHING for non-professional reasons. We aren't that important...

personal photos, home movies, coding projects, writing, old schoolwork

all irreplaceable

 

[palswim]

I reformat every few months and keep nothing. I don't see why a normal user would need to backup ANYTHING for non-professional reasons. We aren't that important...

Some people like photos.

I don't trust other sites with my e-mail, so I have a copy of all of my Gmail messages on my local PC. Also, I have a lot of videos (sports matches and the like) that I don't trust to stay on the Internet forever.

It's not all super-important, but I still have use for backup.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow seems crazy to not have anything important. I have GB's and GB's worth. Pictures, code, server configurations, databases, websites, misc documents, blue prints for random stuff, documentation etc... Some of my stuff is projects that have been ongoing for 5-10 years. So yeah, I have pretty good backups. On site as well as off site. Email alone, I can go all the way back to 2004. It's rare, but sometimes I actually do need to pull up an old email.

Some of the really important stuff like my game server I can go back 7 days, and 12 months. Basically there's a folder for each day of the week and a folder for each month and it just updates today's day and today's month.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Some people like photos.

I don't trust other sites with my e-mail, so I have a copy of all of my Gmail messages on my local PC. Also, I have a lot of videos (sports matches and the like) that I don't trust to stay on the Internet forever.

It's not all super-important, but I still have use for backup.

I'm the same way, I don't really trust any of my stuff on a server I have no control over. I run my own email server, hosting etc and everything is backed up by myself.

 

[smakme7757]

Thanks for the reminder

Everyone has something to backup. A resume might be something able to be whipped up in 10 minuttes, but a decent resume will take some time.

Keeping finances in order is important too, but i'd imagine most people not owning anything wouldn't have much to take care off apart from rent, but then you usually just get an agreement on papir which you shove in a draw sometwhere.

I take care of almost every document I get, we live in a paper society so keeping everything in order is a must. Add in photos, family videos, documents, papers and so on I'm sitting at about 2TB at the moment.

I reformat every few months and keep nothing. I don't see why a normal user would need to backup ANYTHING for non-professional reasons. We aren't that important...

It's a little off topic, but you mentioning "We aren't that important" sort of makes me sad . That's a primary reason why a lot of criminals can get so much info about people leading to identity theft and so on.

People seem to link "import" and "secrecy" to business or government affairs. The information on my PC and my bank balance is as important to me as the blueprints of a new fighter jet is to a government. Some people wan't to steal the blurprints for the fighter jet and lots of people want to steal my bank balance.

We are important, people are just taught that their not!

i'll stop rambling now